The Secret to be Revealed
by The Fishie
Summary: She’d do about anything to get that internship. But maybe the old saying that some secrets aren’t meant to be revealed, is right…And the truth really is something she didn’t want to know.
1. Mia Sanders

**Heya, first The Covenant story **

**I sure as hell own nothing except for maybe the storyline I guess. ****Rating may go up, but for now, we're cool. Only some swearing, barely noticeable dirty talk (hello this is a story revolving around teenage boys) and some mild violence. ****That's all I have to say for now I guess…Enjoy!**

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* * *

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**The Secret to be Revealed**

**Introduction: **

It was seven am; it was raining -no pouring outside. The thick droplets were banging merciless onto her window…It didn't bother her just yet, she could block out the weather and study like the good girl she was, as long as there wasn't any thunder, she was all right.

On days like this she missed having a roommate…Elizabeth had transferred to a public school somewhere in October, she had been sick of the pompous morons that ruled Spencer Academy and wanted something a little more…normal.

Because normal, that was something Spencer Academy definitely wasn't.

It was mainly a school for the children of Massachusetts beau monde; the average student was rich, spoiled by mommy and daddy and spent more time partying than studying because they could easily get on by their family name.

Relying on the family name that was something, she refused to do.

She wanted to be someone, an individual, not, Maria 'Mia' Sanders daughter of Edward Sanders one of the top plastic surgeons in the world owner of a very renowned private clinic, but just Mia Sanders.

Thus, she was sitting on her bed in her dorm on a Thursday night studying instead of at one of the known 'hotspots' like Nicky's.

A familiar ringing filled the room, surprising Mia, a fidgety person by design, causing her to drop her pencil onto the floor.

"Idiot," she muttered to herself grabbing her cell phone of her bedside table and put it to her ear. "Hello?"

"_Hey Mia, its James," _the familiar voice of her older brother said.

James was her only sibling, he was thirty years old, married and lived in New York City with his wife and their adorable daughter –her godchild- Misha. He was an investigating reporter for a widespread newspaper.

"Hey James, everything okay over there?"

"_Yes I'm fine, and you? Getting ready to go out and party with your girlies?" _James asked in a teasing tone, he knew fully well his little sister was nothing like him when he was that age; she was more the studious type than the party animal type.

"Ha-ha James, you crack me up," Mia muttered as she retrieved her pencil from the floor. "Why are you calling?"

"_No reason."_

"You never call me for no reason; it's your wife who calls me for no reason you always want something when you call me."

"_Sceptic girl."_

"Just stating facts, now what do you want?"

"_A favour."_

"I don't like the way that sounds," Mia said pursing her lips.

"_I want to write a new article and I'm going to need your help."_

"How so?"

"_It's about the Sons of Ipswich."_

"You're kidding me right?" Mia said frowning. "Sure write an article over them, they need a little ego boost."

"_Do I detect a note of sarcasm?"_

"No shit Sherlock."

"_The Sons of Ipswich have always had the golden ticket, for generations they've been put above everything and everyone,"_ James explained. _"I want to know exactly how outrages the current generation is…I want to know with just how much they can get away with."_

"So it's a complaint against Ipswich society?"

"_And of course to show just how much influence a name can have in a town that is obsessed with old stories."_

"And you want me to do what?" Mia asked obviously warming up to the idea.

"_To keep an eye on them, if they go out you go out, make contact, get to know them, try to become an acquaintance of them someone they'll allow to hang out with them and maybe they'll let you in on some of their little secrets."_

"Do you have any idea how hard that is, getting in touch with the Sons of Ipswich? Half of the female population at this school tries to get noticed by the fab four on daily basis and fail miserably."

"_Point?"_

"They're unapproachable, like royalty."

"_Use your feminine charm."_

"Oh yeah that'll work," Mia muttered rolling her eyes. "But with the right motivation I'll find a way to make contact."

"_I knew it…sly devil; I must say I'm proud," _James said and she could just tell from the tone of his voice he was grinning. _"How about a car for your eighteenth?"_

"If I wanted a car I would've just asked dad."

"_Point...how about: spending your summer holiday over here in New York."_

"That's more like it but…no."

"_Okay than…summer holiday in New York and an internship with the paper."_

"Deal," Mia said smiling like the Cheshire cat.

"_You are aware of the fact I'll be expecting regular updates by email and by phone."_

"Naturally, but I'll only report to you if I actually have something to go on."

"_Brilliant, hope to hear from you soon."_

"Of course, say hello to Jessica for me and give Misha a kiss for me okay?"

"_Sure thing my little miniature reporter one…Bye sweets." _

"Bye," Mia said smiling before closing her phone and putting it back on her nightstand.

Maybe she had been a little to overconfident, how was she going to get in contact with them? Okay she was in a few of their classes, and she actually sat besides Tyler Simms during advanced maths and biology but still she was going to have her work cut out for her. She wasn't used to 'socializing' it just wasn't her forte: she was more of a silent grey little mouse, she didn't feel the need to stand out in this environment because well…it just wasn't her kind of place. Probably one of the other reason's she spent most of her time studying like the nerd she was deep down.

She sighed, laid down and stared at the plain white ceiling: she really wanted that internship and she was willing to work for it. So if that meant 'socializing' with the Sons…She was going to socialize with the sons, and she was going to start first thing tomorrow.

* * *

**Chapter One: It's Not As Hard as It Seems.**

As her schoolmates hurried their way to their first period, Mia headed towards the nurse's office deciding to skip all her classes until after lunch. You see her second period was Maths, she sat next to Tyler during maths if she wasn't there she would have an excuse to talk to him during Biology: to ask him for his notes.

To be honest she was pleased with herself for coming up with such a devious little plan.

She knocked on the door of the nurse's office putting a pout on her lips and a feigned sleepy look on her face.

"Come in!" Miss Doherty, the English fifty-something school nurse. Who simply adored her thanks to her big brother and his natural charm.

"Good morning Miss Doherty," Mia mumbled.

"Maria dear," the woman said motioning her to sit down. "Aren't you feeling well?"

"I'm afraid I'm having a bit of a migraine…It started last night, I've hardly slept," Mia said impressing herself with how pitiful she sounded, she emphasized her point by yawning.

"Poor thing," Miss Doherty said pursing her lips, "those migraines of yours remind me you're your brother's sister; he had the most dreadful migraine attacks."

Those were hangovers actually.

"He still has them every now and then."

Miss Doherty nodded: "You two sure do look alike; same face, same dark hair, pale skin and dare I say same personality…except the eyes your brother's eyes were more of a greenish blue, yours are more bluish green…How old is your brother again?"

"He's going to turn thirty-one in June."

"Time sure does fly fast," Miss Doherty said smiling to herself, "I can still see him sitting where you're now sitting with that sad look on his face. But thirty-one you say. My dear you two are a great deal apart aren't you?"

"I was an accident," Mia said with a small smile. They covered this subject every time she set foot in the nurse's office. "My mom and dad were forty when I was born."

"What a lovely little accident you turned out to be," Miss Doherty said smiling warmly. "But let me get you something for those awful migraines now shall we."

"That would be awesome," Mia said as Miss Doherty disappeared into her little examination room.

This was just too easy, of course, she felt a little bit bad for abusing the nice woman's trust. But what had to be done had to be done.

"Here we are," Miss Doherty said reappearing. "Here you go dear," she said handing Mia a pair of little white aspirins. "You can take one now and keep the other one for later. Now go to your dorm take a little nap I'll inform your teachers that you won't be attending class today."

"If I feel better after lunch I'll attend my remaining classes," Mia stated as she stood up.

"Such a devoted girl," Miss Doherty said with that warm smile on her face.

"Goodbye Miss Doherty. And thank you."

"It's nothing my dear." The woman called after her as she closed the door behind her.

As soon as she had turned a corner she pocketed her pills, they might come in handy when she had a real headache but for now, they weren't needed.

* * *

**(Biology, first period after lunch)**

Mia anxiously tapped her pencil on her desk as her classmates were still pouring into the classroom, their teacher Mister Fitzherbert, he was always at least ten minutes late so that would give her more than enough time to ask Tyler for his Math notes.

Well think about the devil, he just walked through the door other three in tow as usual.

Thank god for the fact that the other three sat on the complete other side of the classroom so she only had to worry about speaking to Tyler, which wasn't going to be that difficult right?

She waited patiently for him to settle down next to her, trying to act as if she really wasn't paying attention to him because well she didn't want to come of like a stalker.

"Tyler, can I ask you something?" Mia asked biting her lower lip.

"Sure thing Mia."

Well he knew her name that was a good sign.

"I missed Maths and I was wondering if I could borrow your notes," Mia said timidly, no acting needed for that she was shy by nature though she had the tendency of hiding it quite well.

"Yeah I noticed," Tyler mumbled before diving into his backpack. "And yeah, of course."

For someone so popular he sure did miss suaveness.

"Thank you," she said smiling brightly as he handed her a binder, "I'll make sure you have it back by tonight."

"That would be perfect since we have a test on Monday."

"Really now? I didn't know?" Mia said lying through her teeth. "Well what's your dorm number? I'll bring it over –"

"I might no be there; the guys and I are going to Nicky's."

"I was planning on going too," Mia said lying yet again. "I'll take them with me and I'll give them to you back there."

"Sounds okay to me."

"Great," Mia said smiling warmly as she stuffed the binder into her bag.

Phase two of her plan was complete, not only had she made contact but she had also established where they were going to be so she could keep an eye on them and see if they got themselves into any trouble.

* * *

**(Latter that day, in front of Nicky's)**

"Tell me again why you're going to Nicky's? You never go to Nicky's!" Mia's friend Joan said parking her car, a bright green Beatle speedster compliments of her daddy dearest, in front of the infamous Nicky's.

"Four words: The Sons of Ipswich," Mia sighed grabbing her shoulder bag from the backseat of the car.

"Since when are you interested in The Sons of Ipswich?" Joan asked raising an eyebrow: her friend was never one to be interested in the 'in-crowd'.

"My brother promised me an internship with his paper if I keep an eye on them."

"That does explain…is he writing an article about them or something?"

"Spot on my dear, but keep it quiet will you?"

"I'm not one to gossip and you know it."

"You're not, but your boyfriend is."

"Meaning?"

"Don't tell Tom," Mia ordered getting out of the car soon followed by Joan.

"You want me to keep a secret from my boyfriend?" She asked with mock outrage. "I don't keep secrets from my boyfriend."

"You keep secrets from him all the time," Mia said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

"Point," Joan chuckled. "He's is kinda easy to trick isn't he?"

"Let's hope our fab four are just as easy to trick shall we?" Mia muttered as the two of them entered the bar instantly spotting a few familiar faces, amongst them Tom, Joan's boyfriend for over a year.

"There's my boytoy, I trust you're smart enough to find us if you want to?" Joan whispered in her ear before walking up to her boyfriend, who seemed totally transfixed by the conversation he was having with some of his friends, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

Mia rolled her eyes before gnawing on her lip as she looked around in search of Tyler; she soon enough spotted the blond-beanie-covered-head of one Reid Garwin at a pool table.

Her theory: were Garwin was, Tyler was, the two were practically attached at the hip.

She stood on her toes, cursing herself for being short and unable to walk on heels, and caught side of the reserved brunet who was involved in a little pool game with his brasher friend.

Careful not to bump into someone she made her way over to the pool table.

He was standing with his back to her, watching his friend make a shot.

She tapped him on the shoulder.

"Hey Tyler," she said smiling sweetly, "just thought I'd return your notes."

"That's nice, but could you like keep a hold of them for a little bit longer? I'm in the midst of a pool game and I'm afraid that if I put them on a table somewhere I'll never see them again," Tyler said –or well actually rambled. "You can stick around if you're interested in pool…or something."

The boy was nice yes, but yet again: he sure does miss suaveness

"Did my baby boy finally grow up and found himself a girlfriend?" Reid said stepping up to them, pool cue still in hand and smirk on his face.

Oh what a sight to see: a dick with a stick.

"She's just giving me back the notes she borrowed from me Reid." Tyler said shaking his head.

"Damnit dude I was hoping you were finally acting like a man," Reid said ruffling Tyler's hair.

"And you know how a real man acts than?" Mia blurted out.

Dumbass you're supposed to make friends with them not piss them off.

"Does kitty-cat wanna show of her claws or something?" Reid asked raising an eyebrow. "If you were let me tell you: Reid Garwin ain't impressed."

"I don't really feel the need to impress you; it should be the other way around if you ask me."

"Well I'm not asking you anything missy."

"Mia." She corrected.

"What?"

"My name is Mia, as in Maria not missy."

"Wait Maria?" Tyler repeated chuckling as Reid looked at her sceptically.

"Uh-yeah, is that so weird?" Mia asked frowning.

"The first time that lame pickup line would actually be true and you don't use it," Tyler said still chuckling while Reid just set his jaw and made an annoyed face.

"Is it normal that I don't get it?" Mia asked hoping she wouldn't come across as an idiot, but she really didn't get it…Was this Sons of Ipswich humour?

"It's normal if you're not familiar with Reid's lame ass pick-up line." Tyler assured a grin still present on his face. "You see every time a girl gets introduced to him he's all like: really that's my grandmother's name, you kinda remind me of her. Well in reality said grandmother's name is Maria."

"That's…a really lame pick-up line," Mia muttered unthinkingly earning herself a death glare from the blond.

"Listen up short stuff-"

"Short stuff?" Mia repeated raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah short stuff, half-pint, midget, hobbit, you get my point." Reid said with a dismissive wave of his hand, which was clad in ridiculous fingerless gloves.

"Don't call me that!"

"Why not? What are you? Five foot?"

"5'2 actually."

"See, short stuff."

"Oaf."

Yet again, you should be making friends with him not insulting him, use that brain of yours Sanders…You do want that internship don't you?!

"Oaf?"

"No, that's a lie, you're not an oaf, you're more of an ogre." She retorted lamely.

"Sanders? What are you doing here?" Someone called from behind her…she knew that voice.

Oh, fuck…shit just hit the fane didn't it?

She made a pained expression and slowly turned to face the chest of someone she was quite familiar with…

"Aaron," she said smiling rather hypocritically. She could miss her connection to Aaron Abbot like a sore tooth for the moment, she knew he and the Sons of Ipswich disliked each other, well dislike is such a soft word, hate is so much more fitting. "Hey."

"What are you doing here?" Aaron asked frowning. "With them?"

He really shouldn't have said that with such contempt and well repulsion.

"I-"

"Is that your business than Abbot?" Reid asked cutting her off annoying her with his meddling.

"Yes," Aaron said with a smirk obviously pleased he could tell off Reid Garwin. "You see, I've known her since, oh I don't know, kindergarten? Our dads play golf together. And oh yeah, guess what: she's my ex-girlfriend."

She really could've done without him saying that.

"That was-"

"And that makes you the boss of her?" Reid said yet again cutting her off, infuriating habit really. She was well aware of the fact he wasn't trying to stick up for her or anything, it was more like: pushing-Aaron-Abbot-his-buttons-so-we-can-have-ourselves-a-fight.

"No that makes me the guy who makes sure she doesn't hang out with the wrong crowd."

"And we're the wrong crowd now are we?"

She felt like she was standing in between to really large starving rabid pit-bulls who were fighting over a bone.

"Can you two like chill?" She piped feeling slightly intimidated as she looked from one tall boy to the other.

The two boys looked at her with similar expressions of surprise…Well at least they could agree on one thing: looking at her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.

"Stay out of it short stuff," Reid said with a very mischievous look on his face…she didn't trust that look the slightest bit. "This is a guy thing," he added draping an arm around her shoulders.

She looked at said arm in distrust and confusion: what was he playing at?

"What are you doing Garwin?" Aaron asked looking at Reid's arm with obvious aggravation.

"Having some fun with our dear Mia."

What the fuck?

"Stay away from her,' Aaron stated and his left eye started to twitch.

Whenever he got that twitch, things were bound to get ugly, but Reid didn't seem to know or even more probable didn't seem to care.

"Or what tough guy?" Reid said unwrapping his arm from her and giving her an absentminded shove backwards she bumped into the pool table quite painfully, there was going to be a bruise there tomorrow that's for sure.

"What do you think Garwin?"

The two were really getting up in each other's face now; they both looked ready to bite the other ones head of. She shot Tyler a look but he seemed a bit too preoccupied with watching the little argument in front of them ,slowly but steadily, turn into a fight.

A fight would be wonderful for the article, especially to see how Garwin would weasel his way out of consequences but she'd rather not be involved in any way, and momentarily both boys were using her as an excuse to have a brawl, so she really couldn't let this happen.

"Fucker!" Someone shouted snapping her out of her train of thought…apparently the two boys had chosen to 'attack' each other while she was off in la-la-land thinking everything over.

The two were trying to hit each other wherever they could, but both were sort off aiming for the face, she sure as hell didn't want to get in the middle of that, but she had to, she had to split them up before Aaron's friends and Garwin's friends joined in on their little rumble.

So: switch of brain, don't think of possible risks, just get in there and stop it.

Before she knew it she was standing in-between them, a hand on each boy's chest and praying to every god she knew they weren't going to crush her or something in those lines…

Journalism was dangerous, very dangerous and not only when you were in a standard war zone.

"Can you two like knock it off?" She muttered only now daring to look up, both boys were still looking at each other like they weren't going to settle for anything but a fight 'till the death: how could they be like this all the time? Her words didn't seem to affect them…so she decided to just try to get the boy she had the most influence on to walk away. She knew fully well nothing that could come out of her mouth would make Garwin back off so that only left…

"Aaron, I can take care of myself yeah? So don't use me as an excuse to pick a fight with Garwin. Do yourself a favour and walk away; it's seriously not worth it. Don't make me tell your dad your acting like a dick."

"How about I tell your dad about the scum you're hanging around with?" Aaron stated; his words were like a red to a bull. But by the lack of attack from Garwin's side, she was guessing Tyler had stepped in as well. Because face the facts: Reid could simply push her out of his way.

"I was just giving Tyler his notes back that's all," Mia said trying to look as innocent as possible. "Walk away Aaron, you have a lot of secrets, and I don't want to use them against you."

Aaron set his jaw and looked at her in annoyance before storming off. But at the door, he halted and turned around.

"Next time I'll make sure nobody's around to help you Garwin, fucking pussy!" He spat loud enough for all to hear, and with that he turned his heel and left.

Her hand went from pressing into Garwin's chest to clutching his right arm in an attempt to stop him from storming after him, on her own Garwin wouldn't even have to break a sweat to get lose, but Tyler was holding on to his other arm. Though she had a feeling, nothing, could hold back a pissed off Reid Garwin…she had heard the rumours about his vile temper, she was hoping for her own safety that those stories were severely exaggerated.

Apparently, they weren't, Garwin pulled himself out of the death grip Tyler and Mia had on his arm and stormed right out of the place virtually knocking over anyone in his way.

Mia didn't think twice and stormed after him, if he was going to catch up with Aaron.

Things would be bad, really bad…and it would really suck if Aaron got involved in this.

Once out the door she looked around, trying to spot him, it didn't take long to catch sight of the blond as he made his way towards a dark, large truck like vehicle –she made a mental note to learn more about cars.-

She ran after him, she wasn't fast; if she had been fast, she would have stopped him on his way to the car. She wouldn't have had to crawl into the passenger seat to pull the keys from the ignition like she was doing now.

So there she was holding the keys a very pissed of hothead wanted.

"Hand it over," Reid grumbled obviously not in the mood for games.

"No," Mia said sounding a bit shakier than she had planned. "If I give you these you'll follow Aaron, you'll get into a huge fight, you'll both get hurt, and you'll both probably get into trouble."

She was actually more concerned about Aaron getting involved and snitching her out to her father who would just know something was up…

"Like Abbot can even land a punch." Reid snorted.

"Think Garwin, think, he's friends are with him, you're alone. Not to insult your manliness or anything but a lion can't take on a pack of hyenas on his own."

"Did you just call me a lion?" Reid asked grinning smugly.

Mia rolled her eyes…insufferable moron.

"So where's Tyler?" Reid asked, remarkable how quickly his mood could change.

"I don't know," Mia said frowning. "I left him in there," she nodded towards the building, "when I came running after you and prevent you from doing something moronic."

"Never mind," Reid said looking out the window, "there's baby boy right now."

What was up with that nickname? It sounded kinda…shifty.

"You're lucky Caleb wasn't here yet." Were the first words out of Tyler's mouth as he climbed into the backseat.

Caleb? Caleb Danvers? He seemed so…calm and collected. Was he the leader of their little club? Was Reid afraid of him?

"Caleb can kiss my ass," Reid said offhandedly.

Apparently not…

"How did you stop him anyway?" Tyler asked turning his attention to Mia seemingly unfazed by his friend's rudeness.

"She pulled the keys from the ignition," Reid said before she was able to even get a peep in.

Such an annoying habit…but be pleasant and nice, be friendly, a lot's appending on getting along with them.

"Daring move," Tyler said nodding his approval, "Thank you for not letting him take of with my car…again."

Reid rolled his eyes and muttered something along the lines of "Drama Queen" under his breath.

"If this is your car, why does he have the keys?" Mia asked.

"He has the tendency of swiping them," Tyler said visibly annoyed, "he's too lazy to get himself a car so he just steals mine."

"I don't steal your car, I just borrow it."

Tyler raised an eyebrow: "Usually borrowing means asking permission."

Reid simply set his jaw and rolled his eyes.

"Need a ride back to campus?" Tyler asked turning his attention back to Mia.

"You wanna head back already?" Reid asked in disbelief.

"Reid I'm doing this for your own good."

"Since when do you lay down the law Baby Boy?"

"I'd love a ride," Mia piped in creating distraction.

Joan was going to kill her for leaving without a word, but this was one opportunity she didn't want to pass up on.

"Hand over the keys than short stuff," Reid said with that roguish smirk.

Mia eyed him suspicious before turning towards Tyler for consent.

"Give him the keys," Tyler said with a shrug, "he's always driving anyway."

Reluctantly she placed the keys in the awaiting palm of Reid's hand.

"See Cherry that wasn't so hard now was it?" Reid smirked starting up the car.

"I'm not a redhead." The words leaving her mouth before she knew it. And only after she had said it she realised he could be calling her cherry for a completely different reason.

"'Course you're not, but you have some cherry red streaks in that little black ponytail of yours." He was telling the truth but judging by Tyler's snort and the dubious grin on Reid's face. She doubted if the little nickname had anything to do with her cherry red streaks.

"So you dated Aaron Abbot?" Reid said out of the blue. She just knew they were going to bring that up. "You don't really seem the type, bit overdressed."

Overdressed? Okay she had been one of the more covered girls at Nicky's with her dark jeans, faded grey shirt and black hoodie but it was fall!

What sane person ran around in barely more than a bikini during fall?

Aaron's girlfriends…okay maybe Blondie had a point.

The car suddenly started spinning like crazy, she squeaked in surprised and silently thanked every God she knew for the fact she had remembered to put on her seatbelt, having had a feeling that Garwin wasn't the most responsible driver in the world.

She closed her eyes and waited for them to crash into something as the car kept on spinning.

"Reid stop it!" She heard Tyler shout.

Garwin wasn't doing this on purpose was he? That's impossible! He isn't skilled enough to be doing this on purpose…

The car came to an abrupt stop.

"Dude there's like nobody and the road and that was just my way of saying earth to Mia."

"How did he do that?" Mia asked dumbfound when Reid started driving again as if nothing had happened.

"He has a gift," Tyler said sounding aggravated.

"Yeah I'm the shit, I know, now answer my fucking question 'bout you and Abbot."

"Yes I dated him-"

"You have really bad taste you know-"

"Let me finish!" Mia said. "We dated when we were ten 'till we were twelve. Our parents thought it was cute."

"You were dating Aaron Abbot and your parents thought it was cute? Bad parenting if you ask me," Reid stated before being smacked across the head by Mia.

"Fuck you, what was that for?"

"For insulting my parents and for that little stunt you pulled back there." Mia huffed momentarily choosing to forget her friendship plan.

Tyler chuckled. "You disserved that Reid."

"And don't be a baby I didn't hit you that hard."

"It didn't hurt you hit like a sissy."

"Jeez, thank you."

"A word of advice, never get into a fight, you'll lose."

"I'll keep that in mind," she retorted dryly.

* * *

**(Back in Mia's dorm, an hour latter)**

She stared at her computer screen with a satisfied smirk on her face and reread her little essay.

__

_Garwin is impulsive and a hothead: he'll jump into something without thinking it through and doesn't seem fazed by he consequences of his actions, maybe there is no need to keep them in mind because he doesn't have to bare them? _

_Simms is, although more grounded than Garwin, easily manipulated by his friend. He also expressed some respect/fear towards Danvers and feared his reaction to Garwin's behaviour. This gives me reason to believe Danvers is indeed the leader of the group._

Her gaze shifted to Tyler's binder, which was laying on top of her bed, she had 'forgotten' to give it back to him, thus giving her a reason to visit them tomorrow.

She was a clever one now wasn't she?

* * *

**T.B.C**

**Well that's it for now,**

**Tell me what you think I guess**

**GREETINGS!**


	2. Stalker Girl

**Okay a guy OC is introduced in this chap, w****hy? ****Because I can! ****And besides I don't like the fact only girl OC's turn up, I think an OC needs a background so I'm making one by using other OC's **

**Hope that makes a bit of sense….**

**So yeah here's chap two!**

**Chapter Two: Stalker Girl. **

****

It was 9.30 am; Mia had been up for about half an hour when Joan had stormed in absolutely fuming about the little stunt she had pulled last night. Apparently, she had been worried sick about her sudden disappearance…Oeps.

And for the last, fifteen minutes she had been shouting at her for being such an idiot: Mia was sitting on her bed with Joan standing in front of her giving her no opportunity to run or duck for cover.

"You're unbelievable!" Joan shouted, giving Mia her patented death glare.

Joan's scary; everyone agrees on that, hell if she gave Garwin that look, he'd be pissing his pants…maybe they should be introduced.

"Did you have any idea how worried I was?"

"Well-"

"You just left without a word, ONE WORD is that so hard?!" Joan asked eyes flaring.

"It was an opportunity I just couldn't-"

"That brings me to my next point you got in a car with Garwin?! Reid Garwin?! Now I just know you're insane…that guy has a fucking death wish! Just being around him is dangerous!"

She did have a point there.

"I'm sorry it's just-"

"You really want that internship."

"Yeah."

"That doesn't mean you have to risk your life and act so irresponsible."

Overdramatic a tad maybe?

"It was just a ride."

"You know I don't trust those guys, there's something weird about them," Joan said, hands on her hips and glaring at her friend.

"Hello that's why James wants to do the article about them," Mia said rolling her eyes.

"You should just forget about it and stay away from them."

"Why?"

"Because they give me the creeps," Joan stated pursing her lips and crossing her arms. "You know I'm a good judge of character."

"They give you the creeps?" Mia repeated frowning. "Reid I can get he's kinda brooding but Tyler is like-"

"The quiet boy who turned out to be a dangerous psychopath."

Mia looked at her friend expressionless. "You've been watching too many movies."

"I don't trust those Sons of Ipswich and I don't think you should be sticking that button nose of yours into their business, might be dangerous."

"As soon as they even do something remotely dangerous, I'm running for the hills okay?"

"You promise?"

"Scouts honour," Mia said earning herself a hug from her ginger haired friend.

"This doesn't mean I like what you're doing," Joan said pulling out of the hug.

"I know," Mia said as Joan made her way towards the door.

"I'm going to see Tom, don't forget your promise," Joan said, doorknob in hand.

"I won't my over-protective-mother-hen-friend," Mia stated rolling her eyes.

"Don't you mock me missy!" Joan called closing the door behind her.

She appreciated Joan's concern really; the girl was just such a sweetheart when she wasn't yelling at her for being such an idiot. But for the moment, the concern was something she could do without, sure, the Sons of Ipswich weren't innocent little puppies but they certainly weren't murderers…for the moment anyway.

There was a truckload of illegal things they did, but murder, highly unlikely.

Her gaze shifted back towards Tyler's binder, now laying on her desk. It was about time she paid him a little visit and returned it to him no?

She stood up from her bed; smoothed out her black t-shirt, grabbed the binder, and headed out. She knew where Tyler's dorm was, he shared a room with Garwin, and since Garwin was rather promiscuous it wasn't hard to find a girl willing to tell her where his dorm was. So for once, it was actually a good thing Garwin was a manwhore.

She walked through the nearly abandoned halls, not surprising, most students used Saturday to catch some extra shuteye, and of course, to party, it was the weekend after all.

Her green eyes scanned the room numbers until finally finding the one she was looking for.

She knocked on the door clutching the binder to her chest and shifted her wait from one foot to the other.

No response.

She knocked again, a couple of times this time.

She could hear stumbling, a bang and some swearing.

A frown formed on her face.

What the hell is going on in there?

Someone was coming; she could hear the footsteps and bit her lip.

It was acting time again…

The door flew open revealing a very annoyed Reid Garwin sporting a white sheet wrapped around his privates, a bed head, a necklace, and a very nasty scowl on his face.

"Uh-Hello?" She tried weakly figuring she wasn't on top of his Christmas card list for the moment.

"What do you want?" He asked visibly annoyed.

"Tyler's binder…I-I forgot to give it to him yesterday."

He looks a lot more intimidating during the daytime with nobody around and with that look on his face. She hadn't quite noticed the way he towered over her before…Damnit this was Joan's fault, all that they-give-me-the-creeps-talk was making her nervy.

"Do you have any idea what time it is?" He snapped.

"Ten am?"

"Ten am?" He repeated looking at her in disbelief.

She nodded.

"I'm fucking dead." He swore slamming the door in her face.

For someone with such a 'noble' background he sure did lack in the manners department. She stood there for a few minutes, not really knowing what to do next: Walk away? Knock again?

She debated with herself and decided on the second, although risking the blonde's wrath; she was going to take her chances. Right when she was going to knock the door flew open again, yet again revealing Reid this time fully dressed with a backpack slung over one shoulder.

"What are you still doing here?" He asked leaving the room, slamming the door closed and walking off Mia stalking after him.

"I want to give Tyler back his binder," Mia said struggling to keep up with him, sometimes she hated being short, especially when the person she was trying to follow was tall and in a hurry.

"He's not in."

"Than where can I find him?"

"The same place I should've been oh three minutes ago."

"So you're heading there too?"

"Bit slow in the head are we?"

Just ignore that comment.

"Why don't you take the binder and give it to him?" She suggested actually counting on him being an asshole so she could follow him to wherever he was going.

"Give it to him yourself," Reid stated not even bothering to look at her.

Reid Garwin was just too predictable.

"Fine," she muttered with fake annoyance. "Can you at least tell me where I'm following you too?"

"The pool," Reid snapped. "And- what's your name again?"

"Maria, like your grandmother, remember? But you can just call me Mia."

"Mia?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up will you?"

Bastard. How does he get into so many girls their pants? Okay he's cute but only 'till he opens his mouth and his body maybe a redeeming quality but nothing can make up for the attitude problem.

She followed him, in silence this time, not wanting to get another snap from little mister Sunshine who obviously was in a foul mood. He occasionally broke the silence by swearing under his breath. From what she had heard she'd figured out he was late for practice and his coach was going to be pissed off at him. So there someone who didn't let the Sons of Ipswich get away with everything, a joy to hear that not everyone kisses their asses.

Once they walked through the doors that led to the pool the coach, a balding forty-something man with a robust build started shouting at Reid from across the pool:

"Garwin you're late, as usually." His voice was boomed through the room. "You know the drill ten laps extra after practice."

Reid groaned and glared but kept his mouth shut as he stomped off to the locker room leaving Mia to stand at the entrance feeling slightly out of place. She had been here maybe once or twice in her whole time at this school, sports didn't really interest her and she didn't have enough school spirit to actually show up to the competitions.

She decided on just taking a seat in the stands and wait there until practice was over. Almost instantly, she wished she had taken something to read with her because this was going to be one mind numbing experience. Probably the only thing remotely interesting about this ordeal was the whole: boys in Speedos thing…she was a girl after all.

It didn't take long for Reid to re-emerge from the locker room and although the boy was a serious pain in the ass, he had quite the body…though she'd rather die than admit it.

The coach shouted something and the boys who had already been in the water when she came in climbed out of the pool and flocked near the starting blocks

Wonder why there weren't more girls here, like the ones who swoon whenever one of the Sons is near them…though actually, every boy here was…eyecandy.

They were hard to recognize from this distance whilst wet but she guessed Tyler was standing next to Reid, judging by the height and built, they, and the two other Sons she assumed, were talking amongst themselves as the Coach busied himself with instructing a younger generation of swimmers.

And suddenly one of the guys standing near Reid pointed at her earning himself a smack across the head from Reid…she guessed he had said something Reid didn't agree with, and another guess was this guy was Pogue Perry aka a nearly as insufferable as Reid, Evel Knievel wannabe.

She had a hunch Reid wouldn't just hit Caleb across the head so he was the logical choice.

The rest of the practice went by relatively incidentless, that is if you didn't count Reid and Tyler nearly drowning a younger student during one of their little in the water play fights. But thanks to Caleb Danver's divine intervention, the boy would live to tell the tale.

She left her seat and leaned against a wall near the locker room door, waiting for the boys to leave the locker room while she absently tapped her fingers on Tyler's binder.

She figured she kind off, zoomed off for a little while because suddenly someone was standing in front of her calling her name.

"Hm?"

"Dreaming about your boyfriend no doubt." A familiar voice snorted.

She looked up just to stare straight into the eyes of Aaron Abbot: how come he always turned up when she really didn't want to see him?

"Boyfriend?" Mia repeated still not completely back into the real world.

"Garwin Mia? I thought you had better form than that."

"I'm not dating Garwin…I don't think that Garwin dates actually." She only realised how easily Aaron could misinterpret that when the words had already left her lips.

"You slept with him?" Aaron asked in disbelief.

"She wishes." A voice snorted from behind Aaron.

Reid Garwin no doubt, did those two fight on daily basses or something?

"Aaron, ignore him," Mia ordered. "I'm just returning Tyler's binder…again. Nothings going on between me and Garwin, don't worry now run along, I can handle myself okay?"

He gave her a doubting look…nice to see he had such faith in her.

He knew there was no point in arguing with her, so he turned around and walked off intentionally bumping into Reid.

"Fucker!" Reid called after him before turning his attention back to Mia. "Why are you still here?"

Mia felt her cheeks flush in well annoyance actually, how many more times was she going to have to tell him this? Was he dumb? Had too much drinking and bar fights affected his memory in some way or another?

"I want to return his binder," she said through gritted teeth looking about ready to smack him across the head with said binder.

"You'd go through all this trouble for a fucking binder?" Reid asked sceptically. "Or are you just trying to get in his pants?"

She looked at him like he just sprouted a second and a third head.

Granted she was trying to look for an excuse to get near them and to actually talk to them and he had seen through that quite surprisingly since he didn't strike her as bright. But did she look pathetic enough to appear like one of their 'groupies' for lack of a better word?

"I'm just being nice," Mia muttered looking about ready to kill the blond.

"Reid, stop annoying the innocent girl." Someone ordered with a hint of amusement in his voice.

"She's a lot of things Caleb but I don't' think innocent is one of them," Reid stated as Caleb walked up to them with a smile plastered on his handsome face.

"Don't you talk to me about innocence you manwhore," Mia said her aggravation momentarily conquering the intimidation she felt.

"Manwhore?" Reid repeated frowning as Caleb chuckled.

It had been the first word to cross her mind and now she wished she had said something more intelligent and less juvenile.

"What's going on over here?" Pogue Perry asked joining there little conversation closely followed by Tyler.

Thank god that Tyler finally decided to show up.

"Tyler your binder," she said finally handing it over. "Did you see Garwin? That was me handing over the binder, the reason why I'm here."

"What-?" Tyler started frowning but Reid cut him off.

So he does the whole cutting off thing to other people too? Good to know it isn't personal.

"I can't believe she went through all this trouble just to hand you your precious binder so I just asked if she was trying to get into your pants and she just through a hissy fit," Reid said rolling her eyes as if she had been overreacting.

She was starting to regret she hadn't asked for more when James asked her to do this. This was worth way more than a stay in New York and an internship.

Tyler's cheeks turned a bit redder much to Reid's amusement.

How could they stand him? Seriously?

"Well I guess I'd better leave now before Garwin starts to accuse me of stalking." Mia grumbled before stumping off in an overdramatic fashion. All an act of course, she wasn't that childish.

Fact: Garwin could care less if he had insulted her even if she made a big deal out of it. But whenever Garwin screwed something up, Tyler would make excuses for him, too predictable really. So she was expecting a drawn-out: he-doesn't-mean-it-like-that-speech from Tyler when she 'coincidentally' runs into him at Nicky's tonight.

As she stomped off, she couldn't help but grin, this really was too easy.

* * *

_(Few hours latter)_

"You do remember what you promised me?" Joan asked giving her friend an intent look after parking the car in Nicky's 'parking lot'.

"Yeah, yeah as soon as they do something even remotely harming for my personal health I'm running for the hills." Mia droned

"And you're not getting in a car with Garwin for the sake of my mental health."

"I'm not getting in a car with Garwin for the sake of your mental health," Mia repeated.

"You promise?"

"I SWEAR Joan, can we now like get a move on?"

"Fine,' Joan said with a sigh before the two of them got out of the car.

"You do know I appreciate your worrying do you?" Mia said linking arms with her friend.

"I know, but you're just so neurotic about whatever you do, I don't want you acting on crazy impulses," Joan said as the two of them started walking towards the rather grungy building.

"You're overreacting."

"No I'm not, you're like that you just don't realise it – Oh my god are they doing what I think they're doing?" Joan said suddenly halting staring at something in front of them on her left.

"What?"

"Look," Joan said pointing towards a couple who seemed to be in the heats of passion.

"Wow two people making out big deal."

"They're not just making out sweetie," Joan said looking a weird mixture of amused and disgusted. "Her skirts hiked up pretty high don't you think? And she's got her legs wrapped around his waist, plus those movements…they're fucking."

"Against the side of a building? Where everyone can see them?" Mia asked looking faintly disturbed.

"Or they don't mind, or they think it's a turn on," Joan said pulling her friend along once more.

"That's skanky." Mia said not pleased by the fact they were going to have to get closer to the 'active' couple to get inside. As they came closer, she recognized the familiar stature of the boy and the blond hair and beanie just made it all the more obvious. "Oh my god Garwin is an even bigger manwhore than I thought," She blabbed out causing Joan to let out a short laugh.

"It's Garwin?" She asked not bothering to lower her voice, they were only fourteen feet away from them, but the couple seemed to be too preoccupied to notice.

"Yep." Mia muttered scrunching up her nose. "Disgusting little man."

Joan laughed as the two of them entered Nicky's. "If you're horny you're horny."

"That's no excuse to do something like that," Mia said sourly as she led her friend to an empty table.

"I know, just yanking your chain." Joan said while she and Mia took a seat.

"Yeah, yeah, when's your boyfriend coming?" Mia said changing the subject.

"Couple of minutes," Joan said with a shrug. "There are the rest of your subjects by the way," she added with a nod to a pool table where the rest of the Sons were gathered.

"I told you about my plan."

"Yeah, you're going to let Tyler come to you." Joan said dully. "A little tip if you want Reid to come to you just wear a shirt: will-screw-in-an-alleyway. Or just stick your tongue in Aaron's mouth, boy wants everything Aaron has."

"Thanks but no thanks."

"Just yanking your chain again."

"If you don't shut up I'll yank you hair."

"Aren't we moody." Joan mumbled unable to wipe the grin of her face.

"Moody? Tell me if the two of you are moody," Mark, Joan's boyfriend, said flopping down on the chair next to his girlfriend's.

"Hey sweetie hadn't seen you come in,' Joan said before welcoming him with a peck on the lips.

"I noticed,' Mark stated. "Why is Mia pouting by the way?"

"I was yanking her chain."

"Sounds fun…about what?"

"Reid Garwin," Joan blabbed.

"Joan! Shut up!" Mia practically shouted, looking at her friend with wide-eyes, she had promised to keep that pretty little mouth of her's shut but here she was, one day latter, blabbing to Mark who was probably the biggest gossip in school!

"Fuck," Joan said closing her eyes as if in pain. "I can't believe I just said that."

"Garwin? Reeeeeid Garwin?" Mark drawled looking quite pleased by this sudden turn of events. "Does Mia have the hots for Garwin?"

"Keep your voice down you nitwit!" Mia scolded looking around, checking if anyone had heard it.

"So what about you and Garwin?" Mark asked, his voice already sounding a bit quieter.

"Nothing."

"Oh c'mon, I know something's up," Mark said like a dog begging for a bone.

"Nothing's up Mark," Joan said rolling her eyes. "Mia was just weirded out by Garwin's little sex-fest outside."

Well Joan might be a blabbermouth but damn she's good in talking herself out of things.

"You girls saw that too?" Mark asked instantly dropping the Mia-likes-Garwin-theory.

"It was hard to miss," Mia stated dryly.

"He such a lucky son of a bitch, Lizzy is one fine looking specimen," Mark said ignoring Mia's remark and earning himself a smack across the head compliments of Joan. "What was that for?"

"For making remarks about other girls, slutty other girls." Joan retorted. She had a jealous streak hidden beneath that confidant exterior. "And speaking of sluts and whores, look who just finished." She added with a nod towards the entrance.

Both Mia and Mark looked and saw Reid entering. He looked a bit flushed and had that stupid arrogant smirk plastered on his face.

"Manwhore." Mia said rolling her eyes causing Mark to chuckle.

"You girls want a drink?"

"Yeah and it's on you, you have some redeeming to do buster," Joan stated with a glare.

"No thanks, I have some walking about to do," Mia said getting up.

"Okay chica, good luck." Joan said. "But don't forget your promise."

"She's going to do what now?" Mark asked frowning.

"None of your beeswax," Joan said grumpily as Mia walked off shaking her head at the 'lovely' couple.

The sons of Ipswich were predictable, to say the least, she saw two of them: Tyler and Garwin playing pool as usual, and Danvers and Perry were sitting with their girlfriends, nearby.

Now for an excuse to walk by the pool table…and it wasn't al that hard to spot said excuse: Jeremiah, Jeremiah Keys, classmate, ex-boyfriend, friend, and badass. Maybe even enough of a badass to challenge Garwin to a pool game.

A sly smile found its way onto her lips as she pranced by the pool table, to the table where Jeremiah and his friends were hanging out.

She tapped him on the shoulder.

"Mia," Jeremiah drawled pulling her onto his lap. "Never thought I'd see the day you stepped foot in this place."

"I'm here on business Miah," she said smilingly knowing fully well he was high: she recognized that dazed look in his eyes; his love for weed was one of the reasons why she broke up with him.

"Business?" Miah repeated chuckling. "You're not working as a prostitute I hope? That would so suck because you're a nice girl and well you're my ex girlfriend I wouldn't want you to-"

She put a hand over his mouth. "Miah you're rambling."

"He took a couple of hits like half an hour ago; he's still on a high." Bob, one of Jeremiah's friends explained.

"That's just dandy," Mia said removing her hand. "Miah are you still good at pool?"

"Fucking fabulous you mean," he said lazily stroking her arm.

High or not high, Jeremiah is so laid back he's almost horizontal.

"Bob can he play on a high?"

"He can make shots, but he won't think anything through you know how he gets when he's on a high. Remember when he went skinny dipping in midwinter?" Bob chuckled.

"I remember and I remember the phenomena that followed."

"Mia I love what you did with your hair," Jeremiah stated randomly as he twirled a red streak in his fingers.

"I love what you did with your hair," Mia said playing with his dark brown eyebrow reaching bangs. "Jerry?"

"Yesssss?"

"Feel like playing pool?"

"Yeah I want to do something, my fingers are all twitchy."

"Why don't you challenge him to a pool game?" Mia suggested pointing at Garwin.

"That blondie?" Jeremiah said scrunching op his nose.

"That's Reid Garwin?"

"Who the fuck is Reid Garwin? Should I know him? Do I know him? Is he-"

"He's one of the Sons of Ipswich."

"Sons of Ipswich," Jeremiah mumbled. "That sounds familiar."

A little information on Jeremiah, he wasn't interested in school…at all. He sat in class, didn't pay attention, and went to his dorm: he didn't do after school activities, he didn't listen to gossip, he didn't give a shit to be honest. This was probably one of the reasons why the Sons of Ipswich didn't really impress him nor did Aaron and his circle of friends. All Jeremiah cared about was acting like a fucking rockstar and hanging out with his select group of friends. In a way he was like Garwin, only popularity meant nothing to him and he was too laid back to be arrogant.

"I'm sure they do," Mia said frowning. "So are you up for it?"

"Sure," Jeremiah said with a shrug. "It's not like I have something better to do anyways."

"So you're going to go up to him and challenge him for a pool game…But don't tell him I sent you."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because I just asked you not to."

"Right," Jeremiah said nodding as if she had just said something meaningful.

"C'mon then," Mia said getting up off of his lap. "You go challenge him, I'll come check on you in a few okay?"

"It's all good to me," Jeremiah said with a shrug as he got up off his chair.

She sat herself back down and watched Jeremiah drag himself over to Tyler and Garwin; he tapped Garwin on the shoulder and shook his hand. A short conversation with a lot of nodding followed and before she knew it, Garwin was setting the table and Tyler had handed Jeremiah a cue.

Garwin was the one to break and she patiently waited for Jeremiah's turn before walking over to the table.

"I hope you're winning Miah," She said sweetly as Jeremiah circled the table.

"You know each other?" Garwin asked sceptically as Jeremiah made a shot that sent one of the balls into the right corner pocket.

"Yes mister pornstar we know each other," Mia retorted dryly. He was far less intimidating in the presence of others, especially when one of those others was on her side, even taller, and far more robust than he was.

"Pornstar?" Tyler repeated raising his eyebrows.

"He was giving a little NC-17 show outside."

"He was having sex?"

"Yes, mister-stating-the-obvious I was having sex."

"With?"

"Lizzy Peterson."

"Lucky bastard. She's fucking hot." Tyler said actually surprising Mia, he seemed like such a nice guy but apparently he was just as much of a pervert as Garwin.

"Dude you're up," Jeremiah said interrupting the conversation.

"I'm going to get a drink, anyone else want something?" Mia asked, hoping Tyler would offer to help so she could have a little chat with him.

"Beer," Reid said flatly frowningly looking over the table.

"Same," Jeremiah added.

"I'll help," Tyler, said much to Mia's delight: so he was a pervert and a good guy that was a rare mix.

"Great," Mia said as the two of them walked over to the bar where a massive bald-guy took her order.

"Look I just wanted to apologize that Reid's being such a dick to you, he's not a half bad guy it's just he can either be a charmer or a jackass to girls and apparently he decided on being a jackass to you," Tyler started. "I just hope you're not offended or anything 'cause he's not a half bad guy he can just be…"

Predictable, predictable, men were so easy to figure out.

"A smug vain bastard?" Mia offered causing Tyler to chuckle.

"Exactly." he said as the big guy came back and put the drinks on the bar. Mia handed him some bills she thought would easily suffice.

"What is it with men and beer?" She stated referring to their three bottles of beer and her bottle of coke.

"I don't know," Tyler said as the guy handed Mia her change.

"The only reason why you drink it is probably because it's illegal and you want to act all tough," Mia said grabbing two of the bottles.

"Probably," Tyler said with a smile as he grabbed the remaining two bottles.

"If only all men we're so agreeing."

"Mia, that Jeremiah dude, he's kind off…-"

"High?"

"I was afraid to ask." Tyler laughed as they arrived at the table and handed Reid one of the beers.

"He's good," Reid said nodding towards Jeremiah who was busying himself with making a certain shot.

"Well what did you expect?" Mia said dryly.

"Was I talking to you? I don't think so?"

"Lay off dude." Jeremiah ordered visibly surprising Reid. He wasn't used to people speaking like that to him not even when they were high of their ass. "If you want to talk to a girl like that do it to that Lizzy chick you were banging outside but Mia's a good girl, doesn't deserve that crap."

Jeremiah is a hero, was that mentioned already? Even high of his ass he still remembered his mother's give-girls-respect-talk, how could he not? He saw how much it hurt his mother when daddy dearest was off with one of his mistresses. Sluts deserved to be treated as sluts and good girls deserved to be treated like princesses.

"What are you her big brother?" Reid scoffed

"Her friend turned boyfriend turned back to friend."

"Yet another boyfriend, you do get around Mia."

"What did I just tell you?" Jeremiah grumbled.

"He was just teasing." Tyler intervened.

"Mia for crying out loud," A voice grumbled from behind her causing her to make a little jump in surprise.

"Aaron, for Christ sake stop sneaking up on me!" Mia said turning around to face him.

"Afraid I'll catch you doing something you don't want me to see?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"You have an interesting choice in men I must say, first the dope head and now the only guy I hate more than the dope head."

"Aaron, nice to see you again dude!" Jeremiah said cheery causing Mia to shake her head.

"Wish I could say the same thing about you Jeremiah," Aaron said rolling his eyes. "Mia, tell me you're not Miah and Mia again?"

"No Aaron, there's no more Miah and Mia and there is sure as hell no Garwin and Mia!" Mia said stomping her foot in a childish way, all of this was getting on her nerves. Couldn't they just let her play reporter and get it over with?!

"You swear?" Aaron asked raising an eyebrow.

"Do I have 'idiot' tattooed on my forehead? Do I look like I'm dumb enough to want Garwin?" Mia asked exasperated. "I mean look at him!"

"Oi!" Reid objected. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Stay out of it Garwin," Aaron barked.

"Okay you two, deja-vu! Don't even think about getting into another fight with me as excuse!" Mia said. "Aaron, stop worrying you're not my father you're my friend if you want to continue being my friend let me live my life I am not dating either one of them. And Garwin, please just back off and play the game!"

"Okay, okay," Aaron said holding up his hands in defence. "But if he," he nodded towards Reid. "Even puts a single hand on you…I'll kill him."

"I'll see you try." Reid snorted earning himself a glare from Mia.

"Agreed, now go have fun, I can handle myself." Mia said.

Why do guys think girls need protection from the big bad world? They can usually handle everything themselves you know, the whole damsel in distress thing is severely overrated.

With a sigh, Aaron turned his heel and walked off.

"Well- uh that was interesting," Tyler said.

"Don't worry about it Reid, Aaron was like that too when I first started dating Mia," Jeremiah stated making Mia want to kill the gentle giant in a very slow and painful way.

"You two were an unlikely couple no?" Tyler said sensing Mia's annoyance and trying change the subject.

"Says you, she can be a real wild child you know," Jeremiah said making yet another shot; Mia had a feeling he was actually winning.

"Really now?" Reid asked raising his eyebrows.

"Not getting on that subject Jeremiah!" Mia ordered but the dark-haired boy simply ignored her.

"Yeah we drove like five hours to go to this Rancid concert, it's the only time I ever saw her get wasted, was fucking hot," Jeremiah said before falling into a fit of giggles.

Yes, a fit of giggles, seeing a boy of his stature giggle was about as ridiculous as Reid Garwin singing; 'I'm a little teapot'.

"Rancid? She looks more of an Avril Lavigne kind of girl than a Rancid chick."

"Don't let the whole miss-prime-and-proper-look fool you; she was the fucking Nancy to my Sid."

Reid grinned like the Cheshire cat: "I know you weren't as innocent as you acted."

"Who is winning?" Mia asked sourly ignoring the remark.

"Jeremiah," Tyler said having a hard time whipping the smirk of his face.

Mia's eyes rested on Garwin's face, he looked…up to something. Suddenly his gaze met hers and for a second or two he looked like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but soon enough the look was replaced with the all too familiar smirk that defined him.

She wondered what she caught him doing.

Tyler announcing Jeremiah as the winnar interrupted her train of thought and brought her back to reality.

"You're good," Reid said.

"Thanks man, keep the money though, just looking for a good time."

"You're the first guy I know to say no to a hundred dollars won fare and square."

"A hundred dollars?" Mia repeated in disbelief. "Jeremiah!"

"What?"

"Betting a hundred dollars on a pool game? Have you lost your mind?"

"Blame it on the weed," Jeremiah said with a shrug.

"Insane, the two of you are insane." Mia huffed.

"You know you like it," Reid drawled causing her to shake her head.

What had she gotten herself into this time? If he kept looking at her, like _that, _she was going to smack him, she needed a breather from them, hell she needed a breather from him but she couldn't leave Jeremiah alone with them, the risk of him telling them embarrassing stories was too big.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a familiar figure approach them, Caleb Danvers; things just got a whole lot better.

"How come lately every time I see you two I see her?" Caleb asked laughingly.

"Stalker I tell you," Reid stated dryly causing Mia to roll her eyes. "It's always the sweet looking ones."

Like she would waste her time on stalking a slut like him.

"And you are?" Caleb asked turning towards Jeremiah.

"Jeremiah Keys," Jeremiah said automatically. "You can call me Jere not Miah; short stuff over there's the only one that can call me that."

"Well at least I'm not the only one who things you're short," Reid remarked stupid grin all over his face.

"Shut your mouth."

"I like her," Caleb said visibly amused.

Well at least he thought she was funny.

"I don't think we've been properly introduced," Caleb said extending his hand. "Caleb Danvers."

"Maria Sanders," she said shaking his hand. "But you can just call me Mia."

"Maria?" Caleb repeated chuckling. "Reid-"

"I know Caleb, the pickup line would've been true on her, I'm not stupid," Reid said rolling his eyes. Did she mention she really liked Caleb?

"Pick up line?" Jeremiah piped in. "He tried to pick you up? He's not your thing, too blond."

"Too blond?" Reid repeated raising an eyebrow.

While Tyler and Caleb laughed and Mia closed her eyes as if in great pain: Why couldn't Jeremiah just put his foot in his mouth?

* * *

**TBC**

**Okay you may have noticed I like LONG Chapters. ****Normally one chapter is one day. ****But this chapter was getting way to long, ****So next chapter will be the last part of Saturday and Sunday.**

**'Till next time ****And do Review :p ****I like that :D**

**XXX**


	3. Fight Club

**It's awesome you guys responded to swell to Jeremiah, especially since I was indeed planning on keeping him in the story, he'll have his own little part just like everyone I introduce -**

**A new OC is turning up, yes yet another one. I still feel that in order for a character to be believable she/he needs to interact with others besides the main characters, I mean they have a life outside of the Sons of Ipswich! **

**So yeah without further redo, here's chapter three of the story. **

**ENJOY!**

**Chapter Three: Fight Club.**

She was shocked, shocked and in slight disbelief: Jeremiah and Garwin were talking…and actually getting along. Apparently, the Jeremiah tendency to be too high to take offence or even pay heed to Garwin's arrogance made him the perfect bar-buddy for Garwin, who seemed to have no problem in sharing some intimate information on that Lizzy girl while Tyler and Danvers were enjoying a friendly game of pool.

"I'm telling you man, she moans like a fucking banshee," Reid said smirking before taking a swig of his beer.

Such had been the conversation for the past half hour: after fifteen minutes of this, she had turned to alcohol.

"Too much of a bimbo for me but damn that girl's got a nice pair of legs." Jeremiah said while he tapped his fingers on the table they were sitting at.

"Not to mention the quality of what's between her thighs," Reid said causing Jeremiah to giggle and Mia to sigh and burry her head in her hands.

This didn't feel like Pulitzer Prize worth journalism…this felt like being a 'reporter' for Playboy.

Suddenly there was a hand on her back causing her to look up: it was Bob.

"You look like you need rescuing," He said before sitting down on the chair next to her.

"Bob!" Jeremiah said cheerily, looking like a three-year-old on Christmas morning. "Reid this is Bobby he's one of those dark smart types, Bob this is Reid he's one of those Sons of Ipswich things and a fucking jackass, and when I say fucking I mean fucking." He fell into another fit of giggles.

"And that was Jeremiah high of his ass as usual." Mia muttered looking at Bob from the corner of her eye. There was something different about him suddenly. His dark eyes looked even darker, and his smiling mouth was suddenly a thin line. "Bob?" Mia asked frowning.

"There was no need for introduction Jere," Bob said through gritted teeth. "Me and Garwin have been introduced before."

Her gaze shifted to Garwin: the two boys their eyes were locked…why did there always have to be something between people she knew and Garwin? He even had a connection to casual acquaintances of hers apparently.

"Oh? You two buddies?" Jeremiah asked the tension in the air unable to break his dazed state.

"He slept with Lisa," Bob said and if looks could kill….

Lisa, who is Lisa? Think Mia, think! Lisa…Lisa and Bob…Bob and Lisa…Girlfriend! It was his girlfriend! They went on a double date once! Garwin slept with her? Oh god, if these was a soap series she would've changed the channel by now.

"She came on to me man," Reid said with that blasted arrogant smirk on his face.

"You think you're all that don't you, haughty little fucker," Bob said absolutely fuming, leaning over the table so close to Reid their noses were almost touching.

"Get out of my face fag!"

"Don't you call me that, Barbie!" Bob spat, while Mia tugged on his hoodie in an effort to get him to sit his ass back down on his chair.

"Make me," Reid said smugly.

Preschool, the two of them were fit for preschool!

"Let's not make a scene now shall we?" Mia said though a part of her was hoping they would get into a fight, she wanted to see the outcome of it, if there would be consequences for Reid. But why did he have to pick fights with people she knew? Okay she didn't know Bob that well, but she didn't know he was a big old sweetheart.

"Why do you always have to meddle?" Reid asked glaring at her.

"This isn't your fight Mia," Bob said calmly, but through gritted teeth not taking his eyes of the blond.

Mia bit her lip and turned to Jeremiah: "Jeremiah, do something!"

"Lisa was a slut Bob, Reid's a slut, they made a better couple," Jeremiah said offhandedly causing Mia to cringe in annoyance.

"He's a slut alright," Bob said the tension was rising and she was expecting an explosion any minute now. She knew Garwin had a temper…but Bob he was so soft-spoken, than again didn't people say silent waters run deep? Was she going to let this happen?

"How about we take this outside tough guy?" Reid asked, jaw set, eyes flaring.

"Are you gonna fuck him too?" Jeremiah asked falling into yet another fit of giggles. "He might look girly but Bobby don't fly that way do you Bobby-?"

"Jeremiah shut up," Mia hissed as the two other boys got up their eyes still locked. "Is this really such a wise idea?" She asked feebly getting up as well, though part of her wanted them to get into a fight.

"Shut your mouth," Reid said emphasising each word but not bothering to look at her.

"Don't you talk to her like that punk," Bob ordered.

"Make me," Reid said smugly before stalking out of the bar closely followed by Bob, Mia, and Jeremiah who kept on asking where they were going.

With a bit of luck Caleb and Tyler will see the little scene and break it up before anything too bad happens.

As soon as they were out of the building, the two boys were pushing each other, trying to get the other guy down or just to provoke the other one even more she didn't know…she never understood the whole male fighting ritual.

"Jeremiah, do something," She said starting to get a bit panicky for Bob's sake. Bob was a good person…he didn't disserve anything bad. She had a hunch Reid was going to win, he was more experienced as this, he was more athletic, and Bob was just the sweet emo kid who wouldn't hurt a fly.

"The moon's beautiful tonight, don't you think? I never really noticed that it was that shiny, did you?" Jeremiah asked. Why oh why did he have to be a dope head?

Calm it Mia, let them throw a couple punches than break it up…But how?

She couldn't jump in-between again, that had worked once, but it wouldn't work now, Garwin and Aaron weren't fighting yet Bob and Garwin were.

Bob threw the first punch; she flinched knowing Reid's payback would soon follow.

Jeremiah was useless, so there was only one option left: Taylor and Danvers.

She stormed back into the bar: "Tyler! Reid is in trouble!" She shouted from the doorway over the ruckus, soon enough she saw a familiar brown haired head approach with Caleb Danvers in tow. She motioned them to follow her, and ran back to the war zone; it had evolved into a full-fledged fight by now, much to her surprise Bob had managed to land a few blows and had even given Garwin a bloody nose.

"Mia?" Tyler asked from behind her, he sounded confused even a little bit worried but judging by the "Oh Shit," he soon enough spotted what was going on and rushed by her Caleb in tow.

"Reid! Stop it now!" Caleb called looking anything but pleased.

His words fell on deaf ears: the two boys continued their little rumble like nothing had happened. Then suddenly Reid seemed to trip over something, stumbling a little: Caleb and Tyler rushed forward effectively breaking up the fight.

It was Caleb, who pulled Reid away from Bob, who was being held back by Tyler. The two 'fighters' were both breathing heavily and each had his own 'battle wounds'.

"What the fuck were you doing?" Caleb shouted violently pushing Reid away from him, so forcefully Reid almost fell to the ground.

"What does it look like I'm doing genius?" Reid sneered, turning around and getting up in Caleb's face.

"What is it with you Reid? I thought after- I though you were better than this!"

I thought after…it had been said quickly and had been so quickly corrected that it was hardly noticeable, but she had noticed, she was a good listener, she had to be.

"What do you want me to do? Run like some fucking pussy?" Reid spat.

Out of the corner of her eyes she could see the worried look in Tyler's eyes, he was still clutching Bob's arms, Bob by the way was still glaring daggers at Garwin but was no longer trying to get out of Tyler's hold.

"Walking away doesn't make you a pussy Reid," Caleb said trying to regain his composure after his little outburst which had quite honestly shocked Mia, Caleb Danvers wasn't the soft-spoken boy she though he was.

"What does it make me than? A coward?"

"So this is all some charade to prove how manly you are than? Fine I believe you can you now stop acting like a fucking idiot?"

"I'm not an idiot," Reid said shoving Caleb.

"You see?" Caleb said aggravated waving his hands about wildly. "You always turn everything into a fucking insult, some things Reid, aren't worth getting into a fight over."

Reid set his jaw, wanting to say something but not really knowing what to say: she recognized that face, her big brother used to make it all the time when he got into a fight with dad and couldn't figure out a retort when dad made a point.

"Just get out of my face," Reid said his tone of voice hinting that there wasn't any room for conversation, he stalked over to Bob stopping just inches from his face.

Garwin was going to provoke him, everyone knew well maybe not Jeremiah, but she could see Tyler's hold on Bob's arms tighten, she could see Danver's disapproving frown, she could feel her own annoyance boiling up again.

"She wasn't worth a fight man," Reid stated dully wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "She was just some slut, next time you pick a fight with me, make it worth it."

"You son of a bitch," Bob said really giving Tyler's grip on his arms a test.

"Jeremiah." Mia piped in. "How about you give Garwin a rematch?"

She had seen some interesting things already; no need to let it continue, no need to risk someone like Bob getting hurt.

"C'mon man." Jeremiah said draping an arm around Reid's shoulders. "I'll buy you a beer and I'll go easy on you. But you're gonna have to give me a bit more info into who's panties you've gotten, sly dog, I don't wanna get your sloppy seconds."

Garwin laughed and allowed Jeremiah to lead him back into the building.

Typical Jeremiah really, defusing a risky situation without even trying.

"Can't that boy use his head?" Caleb muttered obviously annoyed with his friend's behaviour.

Mia's eyes shifted to Tyler, who had let go of Bob's arms.

"Bob you're bleeding," Mia said her eyes resting on the blood leaking from the corner of his mouth and trickling down his chin

"It's fine, Mia," Bob grumbled. "I'm fine." He walked away angrily into the night, he needed to vent anger, she understood, he needed to be alone and lick his wounds. Talking wasn't always the best solution to problems…She'd check up on him tomorrow.

"Does he get into a fight every night?" Mia asked turning towards Tyler.

"Sometimes he has a point when he get's into a fight," Tyler reasoned.

But she could tell from the look Danvers shot Tyler that he disagreed, that he _strongly_ disagreed.

"Well I think, it's best we head back inside," Caleb said changing the subject abruptly. "It's chilly out don't you think?" He smiled pleasantly. "And we're not really dressed for the occasion."

"Yeah you're right," Mia said smiling back at him sweetly. To be honest she hadn't noticed, too enthralled into what was happening to notice the Goosebumps on her arms. "And you'll be able to keep an eye on Reid", she added casually just to see his reaction.

"Yeah," Caleb said sourly as the three of them made their way back inside.

"Don't worry; I don't think anyone can pick a fight with Jeremiah when he's high." Mia said lightening the mood.

Caleb chuckled as they once again entered the smoky, noisy bar. "I was wondering what exactly was wrong with him."

"He's always kind off laid back, but when he's on a high, that's usually from noon to night by the way, he's completely whatever."

"Maybe he'll be a good influence on Reid," Caleb stated obviously amused.

"You want Garwin to smoke weed than?" Mia asked playfully.

"Might actually do him some good you know." Tyler piped in as the three of them took a seat at a table not to far away from the pool table.

She had a hunch Danvers and Tyler wanted to keep an eye on Garwin, especially Danvers he didn't really seem to approve of Garwin's vile temper and his dark eyes kept on shifting towards his friend.

"It was a good thing you were around again Mia," Tyler said after a few minutes of uncomfortable, at least to her they were, silence.

"What can I say, it's a gift," Mia said smiling choosing to forget mentioning that today-and yesterday's scuffle had been her fault indirectly.

"Maybe you have a little guardian angel streak?" Caleb said.

"If I were a guardian angel I'd pick a more disserving charge," Mia stated dryly. "He isn't exactly mister sunshine now is he?"

"I wish I could say it's just part of his image, but it isn't," Caleb said humorously.

"Caleb you're making it sound like he doesn't have any redeeming qualities." Tyler interjected smirk on his face.

"He seems to be getting along with your friend." Caleb pointed out. "That's a rare sight; usually we're the only males he gets along with."

"It's hard not to get along with Jeremiah," Mia said with a shrug. "The only one who really dislikes him is Aaron I guess and that's my fault, he thought Jeremiah was a bad influence."

"Tyler told me you two dated but I didn't think Aaron would still be so protective, doesn't seem like his thing."

"You talk about little old me?" Mia asked raising her eyebrows.

"Of course, you were a girl actually arguing with Reid, rare sight," Caleb said smiling. "Of course I wanted to know your name for future reference."

"I'm usually not that like that, but he just got on my last nerve, annoyance won it from intimidation."

"Intimidation?" Caleb repeated.

"Well it's stupid to get into a fight with someone who towers over you, you know."

"Reid might threaten you, but he I don't see him going as far as hitting you," Caleb stated. "I think it's against his principles- and yes he does have principles!" Caleb added spotting the sceptical look on Mia's face.

"Uh Mia what's Jeremiah doing?" Tyler said staring at the pool table with a frown on his face. She followed his gaze and saw Jeremiah with Reid in a half hug whispering something, apparently highly amusing, in the blond's ear.

"He's being- Jeremiah?" Mia said looking at the scene with slight disbelief: how did he do it? Seriously, how did Jeremiah make friends so easily? He actually just befriended the most difficult person she had come across in a long time. It just wasn't fair.

"Is he gay?" Tyler blabbed out rather awkwardly.

"Normally no, but when on a high I have seen him kissing a few guys," Mia said frowning before getting up. "I'm going to check on them, see what's so funny."

She pushed herself up off the chair and walked up to the pool table.

"You two look like mischief," She stated before being pulled into a half hug by Jeremiah as Reid made a shot.

"Fucking hot shot Reid," Jeremiah said before turning back to Mia. "Mia do you think Reid's hot?"

Mia looked at him in frustration before lightly smacking him across the head.

"You should really stop smoking weed Jeremiah, it's affection your brain."

"He's hot, you're hot, you two should have hot sex and like tape it," Jeremiah reasoned, earning himself yet another smack.

"What have you been talking about?" Mia asked Reid knowing fully well, there was only a slight chance she was going to get the truth out of him, but chances of getting a serious answer out of Jeremiah was null to nil.

"Sunshine and lollipops." Reid answered with a sneer.

"Mary Poppins." Mia muttered under her breath causing Jeremiah to giggle and before resting his face in the crook of her neck.

"You smell nice," he said absently.

"Thank you Jeremiah," Mia said giving his back a friendly pat before turning her attention back to Reid. "Why are you such a jackass?"

"Because I can," Reid said arrogantly. "Why are you such a peacemaker?"

"Not because I like you I assure you," she said wryly.

"Like you don't want me," Reid said smug look on his face.

Smug arrogant bastard! The world doesn't revolve around him just because some idiots treat him like a god.

"I'm still thinking the two of you together would be hot." Jeremiah stated his warm breath tickling the sensitive skin of Mia's neck.

"Jeremiah please don't say stuff like that," Mia said shaking her head.

And suddenly there was uproar, peoples shooting up from their seat rushing over to the other side of the establishment.

"Fight!" A preppy looking boy announced as he rushed towards four boys who were trying to beat the crap out of each other.

"Now isn't that just great." Mia muttered as a familiar ginger head march up to her. "Joan?" She asked worriedly noticing the concerned look on her friend's face.

"Those are Mark's friends," Joan said nibbling her lower lip. "And Nicky just called the cops, it's going to be trouble Hunny, Mark's going to try and talk 'em out of trouble, I can't leave but I suggest you do."

Mia nodded. "I'll find someone to give me a ride."

Joan's eyes shot towards Reid who was watching the scene with moderate interest. "Remember your promise," She said shifting her gaze back to her friend with a stern look on her face.

"I will," Mia said rolling her eyes before noticing Joan frown. "What?"

"Are you and Jerry back together?"

"No he's just high and affectionate." Mia answered patting Jeremiah's dark-haired head.

"Okay," Joan drawled raising an eyebrow. "Get home safe okay?"

"Same goes for you." Mia called as her friend rushed of towards wherever Mark was.

"Well?" Reid asked.

"Well what?" Mia asked while looking around for Jeremiah's friends.

"Aren't you going to ask me for a ride?" Reid asked, she didn't have to look at him to know he was smirking.

"No I'm not." Mia said flatly finally spotting one of Jeremiah's friends: Giovanni aka Van, half-Italian half-American, a bit odd but trustworthy enough. "Van!" She shouted causing the blue-eyed peroxide blond to look up and walk over.

"I was looking for him," he stated nodding towards Jeremiah.

"I'm officially handing him over to you; I suggest you guys get on over here. The police are coming and if they see him like this he'll be in major trouble," Mia said carefully pushing Jeremiah away from her.

"Sure," Van said grabbing Jeremiah by an arm. "Have you seen Bob?"

She shot Reid, who was looking at her with raised eyebrows, an accusing look.

"He got into a fight; my guesses are his back at the dorms sulking and listening to Taking Back Sunday." She said while she saw Aaron leave the bar, she hadn't noticed he was here.

Van nodded. "You need a ride?"

She shook her head. "No thanks, I just saw Aaron leave, I'll get him to give me a ride, hurry up out of here okay?" She said before speeding off after Aaron not bothering to say goodbye to Reid.

"Aaron!" She shouted once outside, Aaron froze a few feet in front of her.

He turned around to face her and arched an eyebrow: "where's your boyfriend?" he asked as she ran up to him.

"Which one? She asked smirking and Aaron couldn't help but chuckle.

"You're weird," he stated.

"You're fault," she retorted. "I need a ride, care to give me one?"

"Why don't you ask Garwin?"

Could've expected that one.

"I promised Joan I wouldn't and besides I've been in a car with him before and let me tell you it's not really a pleasant memory."

"What were you doing in a car with Reid Garwin?" Aaron asked obviously suspicious.

"Preventing him from coming after you."

"Don't do that ever again please," he said draping an arm around her shoulders, a friendly gesture, shielding her from the cold night. "Winter's coming early this year." He stated as he guided her to his new car, a shiny silver Lexus GS, so she had been told.

"Don't your friends need a ride?" Mia asked as he opened the car door for her: old habits die hard.

She climbed into the passenger seat and he slammed the door shut

"Came separately." Aaron answered sliding into the driver's seat.

"What about Kira?" She asked as he put on his seatbelt.

"You know we're in an on and off again relationship right?" Aaron asked while Mia copied his actions and he started the car.

"Yeah,"

"Currently we're off again," he said dryly.

"That sucks."

"We'll be back together in less than a week probably; it's like a vicious circle." Aaron snorted. "You know, I really should take the time to find a new main girlfriend, don't you think?"

Main girlfriend, the words made her cringe, but at least he wasn't denying he had a few on the side. Maybe the reason why he and Garwin don't get along is because they're quite similar in some ways.

"I don't think so, I know so."

"You don't like her?"

"She's not mean to me or anything, she actually pretty nice but it seems so…well- fake."

There was a short silence, it was a heavy one, she just knew Aaron wanted to say or ask something but didn't really know how.

"Aaron if you want to say something just say it, don't pussy foot around."

"Why Garwin?" He finally asked. "There's tons of guys in our school, why Garwin?"

"You still think I'm into Garwin?" Mia asked feeling a mix of disbelief and amusement.

Were all men this slow or only the ones she knew?

Aaron said nothing and kept his eyes fixed on the road, men could be such babies sometimes.

"Aaron, hear by I solemnly swear I'm not into Reid Garwin."

"Good," he said actually sounding relieved. "You know how I feel about that guy,"

"Why?" Mia asked realising she had known a source all along: Aaron probably had more dirt on the Sons of Ipswich than she could hope to uncover.

"I just don't like them okay? Never did never will."

"But give me a reason."

"People fawn over them for absolutely no reason but their names. The whole Sons of Ipswich thing is ridiculous if you ask me."

That first part was rich coming from mister Jock, but the second part was a whole lot more like it.

"And lately I've been thinking it's gone more to their heads than I had thought. Remember that Chase Collins dude?"

"That boy who went missing last month?"

Now things were getting interesting.

"Yeah arrogant asshole, kinda reminded me of Garwin, he was like trying to get on their good side but in the meantime he was moving in on Perry's girl and beating Danvers at swimming. Then all of a sudden, he goes missing 'presumed dead' after some freakass so-called-accident with Danvers being the last one to see him."

"You think they had something to do with it?" Mia asked a bit taken aback by this new piece of information. Aaron was accusing them of murder; this was a lot more serious than the 'crimes' she had been suspecting them of. She felt her stomach turn: 'murder'.

"It's a bit convenient don't you think?"

"But murder, Aaron?"

"Rich boys gone wild, it's happened before Mia," Aaron argued. "Collins was an orphan; no pesky relatives asking questions, I'm sure the police was easily persuaded to let it all slide for a bit of cash."

Mia's mind was racing: this was quite the development: murder, it was hard to get her mind around that. Joan's words kept popping into her head: _"They give me the creeps."_

They were starting to creep her out a bit too, but she was determined to get to the bottom of things.

* * *

_(Sunday, 10 am)_

She was walking through the halls, dressed casually in jeans and a bright pink t-shirt, her shoulder reaching hair for once pulled up into a high ponytail; she wanted to check up on Bob and Jeremiah. On Bob to see in what state he was in after his little fight with Garwin and on Jeremiah to see if Van had kept word and had actually gotten him to his dorm.

She knocked on their door, which was badly damaged by one of, uh- Jeremiah's little _experiments_ during one of his infamous highs. Jeremiah, solely clad in dark blue pyjama bottoms, soon opened the door.

"Mia," he said with a charming smile on his handsome face, "how nice of you to drop by!" And with that he turned around and walked back to his bed leaving the door open for her.

"Just wanted to see if you two got home okay," Mia said entering the room, closing the door behind her. By now, Jeremiah was setting on his bed, a black beaten acoustic guitar, his favourite Fender, in hand.

"I'm okay, just entertaining myself," he stated. "Sit down." He said looking from her to his bed intently.

She obeyed and sat down on the foot-end of the bed.

"Where's Bob?"

"Showers," Jeremiah said absently strumming on his guitar.

"You and Garwin sure hit it off yesterday." Mia said testing his memory of the previous night.

"I guess."

"You remember?"

"Virtually everything yeah," Jeremiah said looking up for a moment.

"You said some fucked up things, Miah."

"Don't I always?"

"Did Garwin-"

"Say anything about you? Yeah but I ain't telling," he said his dark eyes twinkling with mischief.

"That wasn't what I wanted to ask you," Mia said pursing her lips and rolling her eyes; she had a hard time deciding when she liked him better on a high or off a high.

"Well I beg your pardon Miss Sanders," Jeremiah said with a smile on his face; accentuating his hamster cheeks and straight white teeth. He was handsome, no doubt about it. But his face, it had this constant look of tomfoolery plastered onto it.

The door opened, revealing Bob, dressed in all black, his short wavy chocolate brown hair still moist from his shower.

"Hey Mia," he muttered walking into the room carelessly throwing his bag onto the floor.

"Hey Bob, everything okay?"

"Sure." was the short reply as he threw himself onto his bed and retrieved his I-pod from his nightstand.

She examined him with a close eye: he had a black eye and a rather nasty bruise on his jaw marring his smooth tanned skin.

"Bob I had to break it up," Mia said apologetic. "I didn't want to see you get hurt."

"I know," Bob said with a small reassuring smile.

"Next time you feel like fighting Bob, don't," Jeremiah said teasingly. "You fight like my little sister man," he added with a chuckle causing his friend to throw a pillow at him that hit him straight in the face.

"Shut up Merry-miah," Bob said with a smirk obviously quite pleased with himself.

"Bitch!" Jeremiah called throwing the pillow back at him.

"Wannabe rock star," Bob retorted.

"Wannabe?" Jeremiah repeated laughingly. "Bob, dude, I am a rock star, and Mia's my groupie."

"Dream on Miah," Mia said while getting off the bed.

"Where are you going ey?" Jeremiah asked.

"I have business to attend to."

"Business, my ass." Jeremiah snorted.

* * *

_(Five minutes later, Spencer Academy Library)_

It wasn't her habit to study in the library; she preferred the comforts of her own dorm like most students. But there was a certain Son who did usually do his studying in the library for god knows what reasons, every time she had set foot in the library to get something, he was there with his nose in his books. Another opportunity for her to have a little rendezvous with one of the golden four, a private rendezvous since the library was deserted except for her and the dark-haired boy.

"Hey Tyler," Mia said cheerily as she sat down opposite of the studying boy while trying to erase Aaron's theory from her mind.

"Hello," he said with a friendly smile.

"You don't mind do you?" She asked referring to her sitting with him.

"No, of course not."

"I'm sorry I didn't say goodbye last night, but I was kind off in a rush," she said apologetic while putting her books on the table.

"Understandably," Tyler said. "You sure did tick off Reid though."

"Really now?" Mia asked amused.

"Yeah apparently you're a pompous bitch."

"That's rich coming from the arrogant bastard."

"My thoughts exactly," Tyler said chuckling.

"So what are you doing?"

"English homework, mine and Reid's, he's too busy fucking someone somewhere so I just do it for him being the good guy that I am."

Sometimes she seriously doubted his sweet innocent boy façade: she had been naïve to think Tyler could be immune to Garwin's influence.

"Is he always like that?"

"Like what?"

"That cheap?"

"He's a ladies man," Tyler said with a shrug. "I guess some girls dig that stuff."

"Especially the ones as sluttish as him," Mia said matter-of-factly.

"Exactly!" Tyler said laughing.

"Did you and Danvers-"

"Caleb, I'm sure he wants you to call him Caleb."

"Sorry habit," Maria said dismissively though she was quite pleased by the progress she was making, "did you and Caleb get out of there before the cops came in?"

"Yeah no thanks to you," Tyler said teasingly.

"Hey I knew Reid was going to warn you," Mia said holding up her hands in defence.

* * *

_**T.B.C**_

_**I know this one was quite short, but I thought it was best to end it there for now, I didn't want to keep you waiting any longer! **__**Next chap to be uploaded is a part of Sunday and a part of Monday. **__**And I promise all you Pogue fans finally get some Pogue action - **_

_**I hope you all got my replies to your reviews?**_

**_To those I can't respond to but want to thank anyways: _**

_**To Pop-Tarts: Thank you, I'm really flattered blushes And I'm actually surprised people seem to like my long chapters, I thought they might be a bit boring!**_

_**Well let me now what you think, **__**I love reviews a**__**nd I always respond to them!**_

_**XXX**_

_**Fish aka Anne. **_


	4. Less appealing aspects

_**Back from exams! And the two week recovery after those pesky little thingies and that annoying thing called "report card" anyways my grades were great otherwise I wouldn't be posting anything since my computer would've been confiscated. **_

_**Okay…Sunday ended up being a teeeeeensy bit longer than I wanted it to be. So Monday isn't in here yet, so no Pogue just yet grins sheepishly But seriously next chapter: he's there!**_

_**Chapter four: Less appealing aspects**_

_(Spencer Academy, The Park at noon)_

After finishing their homework in the library, they had actually gotten some work done, the two of them had decided to skip lunch and hang out in the park because it really was a beautiful fall day, the weather really was excellent for the time of the year. So here they were, sitting on a bench in the middle of the park while the other students were inside eating.

"Favourite book?" Tyler asked

"Catcher in the Rye, hands down the best book ever written," Mia said causing Tyler to laugh. "What so funny wise guy?" She asked poking him in the arm.

"You're an emo kid," Tyler said through laughs.

"Hey!" Mia said with mock offence. "What's your favourite book than eh?"

"Nineteen Eighty-Four."

"Big Brother is watching you," Mia said monotonously staring at him intently with wide-eyes.

"Don't do that," Tyler said chuckling. "It's creepy when you do that."

Mia smiled sweetly and dropped her little act: it was getting harder for her by the minute to actually keep Aaron's theory in consideration; Tyler was hardly the killer type. But in the back of her mind she made a mental note not to keep her guard down, just because he seemed nice didn't mean he couldn't be a killer: the quiet things no one ever knows.

"So I take it you actually read the book?" Tyler asked snapping her out of her thoughts.

"Of course," she said curtly, smile never leaving her face. "I love to read."

"Same, but it's a bit hard when you're friends with Reid."

"I had a hunch he wasn't the book type."

"He's too active to actually sit down and read and whenever I want to read he starts whining about how bored he is. The only time I actually have the chance to read is when he's off with some girl."

Surprise, surprise.

"What about music?" Mia asked changing the subject; she had enough information on Reid for now: arrogant violent egocentric manwhore summed him up quite nicely.

"Punk-rock I guess,"

"Really now?" Mia asked raising her eyebrows.

"That so hard to believe?"

Mia smiled; "You just seem so-"

"So?"

"Pop?" Mia offered earning herself a playful whack on the shoulder compliments of Tyler.

"Do I look like a twelve year old girl to you?"

"If I say yes will you smack me again?"

"Yes."

"Than no," Mia said cheekily actually getting Tyler to laugh as well.

"Please don't make me gag." A voice sneered from behind them.

A voice belonging to Reid Garwin of course, of all people it had to be him again.

"Reid, I thought you were out with Lana?" Tyler said as Reid walked by them so that he was standing in front of the bench they were sitting on.

Someone had been watching one to many rock stars: dressed in a black-grey striped hoodie with the hood pulled over his head, baggy jeans and a cigarette in his mouth.

He smokes? That's a new revelation, but expectable: typical look at me I'm a very bad boy behaviour.

He took the cigarette from his mouth, clutching it between the ring finger and the index finger on his left hand and blew out a plum of smoke…Was he left-handed maybe? That bit of knowledge might come in handy sooner or latter or maybe she was just being too observant.

"Been there, done that," he said with a smirk. "What are you two doing, hm?"

Did she detect a note of accusation in his voice?

"Talking, you should give it a try sometimes." Mia muttered barely understandable.

"Did I ask you something short stuff?" Reid drawled before taking another drag of his cigarette.

"I'm sorry but do I look like some slave you can boss around?"

Mia shut your mouth Hunny: Garwin is taller, stronger, a hothead and insane.

"Tyler, tell your girl not to get her panties in a bunch."

"What did you want Reid?" Tyler asked diverting the conversation, from the time she had spent around him she had realised Tyler was bad around tension and she had a hunch Reid's tendency to get into arguments was one of the reasons why.

"Nothing baby boy," Reid answered. "I was just out for a smoke and then I saw you bonding with the enemy."

"The enemy?" Mia repeated in disbelief. "I saved your ass, twice!"

Reid waved dismissively. "Wow yeah from Aaron Abbot and that Bob guy, like I couldn't have handled them."

"You arrogant-"

"Can the two of you shut up!" Tyler shouted causing the two of them to look at him in wonder. "Please?" He added sheepishly.

"Baby boy she's changed you," Reid said frowning and shaking his head.

There was something…shifty about that nickname really.

"Why do you call him baby boy?" She blurted out.

"Because he's the baby boy?"

"You do know it sounds rather, _shifty_."

"What are you implying?"

"Nothing, I'm just saying-"

"You think I'm gay?"

"I'm not saying you're gay Garwin," Mia said rolling her eyes. "I'm just saying it sounds sort off…well yeah shifty, but if you were there would be nothing wrong with that-"

"Shut up I'm not gay."

"I didn't say you were-"

"Reid nobody's saying you're gay, you're not gay I've walked in on you and plenty of girls more times than I'd like to remember and Mia, he's not gay." Tyler interrupted the peacemaker in him gaining the upper hand.

"I DIDN'T SAY HE WAS!" Mia said visibly annoyed.

"But you were implying." Reid said glaring at her, dropping his cigarette to the ground and putting it out with his foot.

"I wasn't but since you're all defensive about it I'm thinking maybe you're just in denial."

Not the best comment Mia dear, make friends, remember? Not enemies! Even though Reid Garwin was probably one of the most insufferable people to ever walk the earth.

"Mia!" Tyler said sternly.

"Fucking bitch." Reid spat.

"Sticks and stones."

"The two of you!" Tyler said jumping up off the bench: "Shut up! I've had it by now: Mia don't taunt the animal, Reid face it she did save your ass, now please either be civil, or ignore each other!"

"Look baby boy I can't help-"

"Don't wanna hear it anymore Reid: you were actually okay to her Friday, for your standards, but since Saturday you've been acting like a…"

"Jackass?" Mia offered.

"Exactly, what she said." Tyler said with a hand gesture in her general direction.

"Just having some fun baby boy, jeez man, don't get your panties in a bunch," Reid said dismissively watching his friend with raised eyebrows. "Don't take everything so serious."

Mia looked at him with an arched eyebrow and could see by Tyler's rigid posture he wasn't really all that pleased with his friend's explanation.

"You're unbelievable." Tyler finally stated, it was just a remark, nothing more.

Reid grinned: "I hear it all the time, mostly from chicks though but glad you're finally admitting it baby boy."

She really wanted to shout it: EGOMANIAC, but decided against it, in her head she kept on repeating her personal little mantra: friends, friends, friends, you want to be friends, friends, friends…

"So you two are -?"

"Not going to bite each other's head off, don't fucking worry so much Tyler, its fucking annoying," Reid said stuffing his hands in his pockets. "It's just a bit of banter baby boy, no reason to get all pissed over; it's fucking weird when you do that."

What a potty mouth he had and he was about as moody as a pregnant woman. Plus that annoying tough as nails image which was probably the reason he kept on getting into fights. Speaking of fights…where were his bruises? Bob had managed to land a few punches, but Reid's face showed absolutely no evidence that he had gotten into a fight the night before.

"Garwin, where are your bruises?"

"First off my name is Reid, but you can call me Garwin if it floats your boot," he said with a smirk.

She didn't know what she disliked more: pissed Reid or smirking Reid.

"Okay than, Reid, where are your bruises?"

"What bruises?"

"Your fight with Bob yesterday?"

"That fucker hits like a pussy, seriously you pack a better punch," Reid said dismissively, though she found that rather hard to believe, maybe Bob was not exactly the fighter type but he had played drums for the bigger part of his life didn't that mean he had some strength in those arms?

She decided against arguing with him, for the sake of not getting into an argument and just kept her disbelief for herself.

Tyler's blue eyes kept on shifting between the two, obviously still in doubt that the two of them could actually have a civilised conversation, well civilised by Reid's standards anyway.

"Heard about the party?" Reid asked after a short silence between the three of them.

"Uh-obviously no," Tyler responded frowning slightly.

"Tonight in the abandoned warehouse a couple of miles away from here."

An abandoned warehouse, how cliché horror flick.

"Cool," Tyler said with a nod. "We going?"

"Fuck yeah," Reid said with a smirk. "What about you short stuff?"

"It's Sunday," Mia blabbed out, feeling like a geek instantly but education was import, well to her at least. Reid, and Tyler thought that was a bit of a shocker, were apparently less concerned with it.

"So?" Reid asked chuckling. "Let lose short stuff for the sake of us being all friendly, I can't deal with people who refuse to live a little. Do it for Tyler's sake."

"I don't know," Mia said pursing her lips.

"Fine, than don't come little miss prime and proper."

Mia he's actually inviting you to something, this may just be a big break through, stop being a nerd and say you'll go, it's just a one time thing nothing terrible.

"I didn't say I wasn't coming," Mia said finally.

"So you're saying?"

"That I'll go to the party."

"Great," Tyler said smilingly. "Just like give me your dorm number and we'll pick you up at eleven."

"Okay, one condition though," Mia said not forgetting the promise she had made to Joan.

"Yeah?"

"He's not driving," Mia said pointing towards Reid who just smirked.

* * *

_(Later that day, Mia's dorm)_

To what level had she stooped? You see, she'd been thinking over what she was going to wear for the last two hours…TWO HOURS, usually it only took her like two minutes but because of her "make friends plot". She had seen the kind of girls the Sons of Ipswich befriended and they were all kind of…slutty to be frank. She didn't want to be that kind of girl, but her usual attire was maybe a bit too well not conservative but maybe too covered. So she had picked out something with a bit more décolletage, something she had been given by her sister-in-law, though she had a bad feeling about it so she grabbed her black hoodie and zipped it up: she'd do a lot of things for that scholarship but this was just a bit too uncomfortable.

A knock on the door followed by a quiet: "Mia, are you ready?"

That was Tyler no doubt about it.

"Get your ass out here woman or we're leaving without you!"

Garwin aka the Neanderthal, yet again no doubt about it.

"I'm coming," Mia said droningly grabbing her shoulder bag and swung it over her shoulder.

"Woman if you're not out the door when I reach three we're leaving without you."

What was this new thing of his with calling her woman? And wow he can count to three?

"One," He said loudly as she opened the door and looked at him: frown on her face and shacking her head.

"Drama king, I have it on good authority you're always late so don't start whining about me," Mia said closing and locking the door behind her.

"Oh yeah?" Reid said smugly, but than again when wasn't he smug? "Who than hm?"

"Your swim coach," Mia said dryly causing the smug look to drop from his face: she had him there and everyone knew it.

"Score for Mia," Tyler said amused.

"Shut up baby boy," Reid grumbled stalking off like a toddler who hadn't gotten his way.

"Is someone having a bad case of Pms?" Mia said quietly so only Tyler, who was walking besides her could hear.

"He just really wants to get going."

"If I didn't know any better I'd say he needs to get laid."

Tyler let out a snort of laughter. "I don't know what he's so worked up for either, but it has to be something good."

"Well since he's practically sprinting out of the building I can't help but agree with you."

"For the record this is not Reid acting normal." Tyler said looking at his best friends, who was walking several feet

"So he does act normal every now and then?"

* * *

_(The Party)_

Five minutes, what's five minutes you ask?

The time it took for the two of them to ditch her and leave her stranded in the middle of a party in a, in her eyes, unstable grungy looking warehouse she wouldn't have stepped foot in on usual basses seriously the thing looked about ready to collapse.

So what had happened for to cause her abandonment?

Of course, as soon as they entered the building, Reid had disappeared muttering a short sentence along the lines of: "I wanna tap that."

And Tyler, well she hadn't really noticed she had lost Tyler until, now? Sneaky little fellow he was. So here she was, leaning against a wall, being the wallflower she had always been. She crossed her arms in front of her chest: damn this sure was a lot of fun.

"Mia!" A chipper voice called.

Mia her head to the right, only to see a smiling Kira making her way through the crowd of people: great just what she needed.

"Hey Hunny," Kira said kissing her on the cheeks before pulling her into a friendly hug. "How have you been?"

"Great thank you," Mia said smiling: you might not believe it but Kira could be infectiously bubble-ish. "And you?"

"Enjoying the life of a single woman," she said letting her eyes roam as if to emphasise her point: she was on the haunt.

"Yeah I heard about you and Aaron I'm sorry," Mia offered politely.

"Oh it's nothing," Kira said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "It's about time I expand my horizons and what about you?"

"Me?"

"Yeah you?" Kira said grinning. "This isn't exactly your scene, the only reason you could be here is a boy…Are you and Jeremiah back together? Mia doll you could do so much better than that stoner."

Mia saw a familiar fair-haired head pop up over Kira's shoulder and prayed to every god she knew, that he wouldn't come over and mingle in the conversation.

"No I'm not back together with Jeremiah," Mia said. "I'm here with-"

"Me," Reid said popping up beside her shit-eating grin on his face. He just had to do that hm?

"Reid," Kira said visibly surprised before giving Mia a look that said as much as: you-sly-woman. "Well this is an interesting development."

"Indeed," Mia said shooting Reid an annoyed look that was answered with a wink: he was just doing this so Kira would tell everyone, and Aaron would find out and have a hissy fit. Every chance of getting under Aaron's skin, Reid grabbed with both hands.

"I must say Mia, well done," Kira said approvingly giving Reid a quick once over. "You're going to tell me all the details tomorrow yes?"

"Sure," Mia said sweetly: it was no point denying any connection to Reid with him there, but first thing tomorrow morning she'd tell Kira he had just been playing tricks and that nothing was going on. That my friends, is called damage control.

"Okay ciao!" Kira said smiling before walking off, her curls bouncing as she moved through the crowd.

As soon as Kira was out of sight, she turned around to face him and smacked him on the arm, hurting her hand in the process, while he laughed like a hyena.

"That wasn't funny." Mia said setting her jaw in annoyance.

"The look on your face was." Reid stated regaining his composure.

"Did you know what you just did?"

"Get rid of the annoying woman?"

"No you just ruined my reputation!"

"What reputation? Until a couple of days ago I didn't even know you existed, so I'm guessing half the school doesn't know you exist."

"Maybe you don't know I existed because you're so full of yourself?" So, where the fuck did she just get this bravery from?

"I thought we were going to be civil?" Reid said raising a single eyebrow.

"You started it!"

"I just got rid of Kira."

"By acting all suggesting!"

"You could've denied it," he said grinning. "C'mon Mia just give in, you want me."

"I most certainly don't want you Reid, the only reason I didn't protest was because I knew I didn't stand a single chance against you." As soon as the words left her lips, she regretted them: way to go to Mia, sure inflate his ego even more…"What do you want?" She added lamely.

"To know where Tyler is."

"I don't know."

"I need him?"

"Really now?"

"Not like that," Reid said looking at her in annoyance." I'm entering a chugging contest."

Men, seriously what's so honourable in draining too much alcohol in a small amount of time?

"Against who?"

"I don't know, some friend of Jeremiah's, the one with the hair."

"The one with the hair?" Mia repeated confused.

"Yeah same hair colour as Gwen Stefani."

Jeremiah had only one friend with that shade of hair namely peroxide blond: Giovanni 'Van' Toni, known for his hothead, drinking abilities, ultra rich parents, and rock star brother.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Mia blabbed out.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, it's good when he does stupid irresponsible things; it's good for the article!

Reid raised his eyebrows: "What are you implying?"

"Implying? I'm not implying anything," Mia muttered. "It's just; Van's a really good drinker."

Was there such thing as a good drinker?

"I can drink you know, I'm not a fag like Aaron."

He's so eloquent.

"You're gonna lose," Mia said flatly knowing it wouldn't change a thing: Reid was going to enter in a beer chugging contest, against Van and he was going to lose, doubtlessly.

"Says you," Reid snapped. "Are you coming?"

"Why should I?"

"Because apparently I have some proving to do," Reid said grabbing her wrist and pulling her off.

"Garwin I know you're usual female companions are used to manhandling but I'm not!" Mia complained: he did have quite a strong grip.

"Sorry," he muttered almost inaudibly: well at least he was apologising. "So where is baby boy?"

"I seriously have no idea; he abandoned me minutes after you did."

"Fucking odd," Reid muttered finally releasing her wrist as he halted them in front of a small crowd and a large but rickety old table.

"Mia!" Jeremiah called stepping out of the crowd and embracing her but Mia actually managed to wiggle out of his grasp.

"Jeremiah, was this your idea?" Mia asked looking at him accusingly.

"Strangely no, though I'm willing to put money down on Van," Jeremiah said before turning towards Reid. "Sorry dude, no offence."

Hey, was he actually not high for a change?

"Hey don't apologize to me, I'm the reason you're gonna lose money," Reid said smirking cockily.

"Where's Van? Maybe I can knock some sense into that head," Mia said rolling her eyes at the general: maleness of every remark that was being made.

"Mia we all know he lost all reason after his third dye job," Jeremiah said offhandedly.

"Where is he Miah?"

"They're looking for him as we speak."

"So he hasn't agreed to this yet?"

"In theory no, but you know Van, he'll do anything to show off."

Oh, he and Reid have so much in common; they'll be the best buddies before the nights over! NOT, the bruised ego of whoever lost, probably Reid, will probably get in the way of any civil behaviour.

Judging by the sudden pandemonium, she had a hunch the reigning champion had arrived.

* * *

_(Minutes latter)_

"Reid you don't have to go through with this," Mia muttered for about the twenty-fifth time since she had seen just how much money there was riding on this chugging contest only further proof spoiled little rich kids had way to much money to spend.

"Woman," Reid said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. "Stop babying me yeah? I did just fine without you; I don't need your advice. So you either shut up and stay or fuck off."

Ass, let 'em get downing more then a quart of alcohol in less then five minutes, let 'em get insanely drunk, let 'em lose an insane amount of money that could maintain a normal sized village in a third world country for about a month! It'll only do the article good!

"Mia Hunny, don't take it personal kid's just nervous," Van said with impressive indifference. For him this was routine, he'd been drinking since he was like what fourteen? His rock star brother had been dragging him along to wild parties for ages and because of this Van was quite familiar with things like drugs, cheap sex, and of course alcohol…lots and lots of alcohol.

"You wish man." Reid sneered with his trademark cockiness. "You're going down."

Van just smiled and shook his head as an emo-looking girl placed two pitchers of beer on the table in front of them.

"Morons," Mia muttered crossing her arms in front of her chest clearly showing her disdain.

"It's a guy thing Mia," Jeremiah said still impressively clean and sober before climbing up on the wobbly table. Mia was impressed it didn't collapse under his weight: Jeremiah maybe slender but he had a good amount of muscle on his tall frame.

"Betting ends now people!" Jeremiah shouted waving for silence and the DJ actually stopped playing. He turned his attention to Van and Reid but not before giving Mia a lame wink. "Kiddies, you two ready?"

Both gave him a nod: they were actually going through with this….MEN!

"Kiddies, hands on glasses," Jeremiah said and the two of them clasped the handles of their pitchers of beer, "last chance to speak up here, you two really ready?"

They looked up to him, sharing a solemn nod, Jeremiah nodded back and mere seconds latter he shouted 'go'.

Mia scrunched up her nose as the two men busied themselves with emptying the pitchers: she thought it wasn't a particularly attractive sight and the thought alone of drinking that much alcohol made her stomach turn.

Van was winning easily, Reid didn't stand a chance, but then when he was only seconds from finishing he started sputtering, gasping for breath and Reid….won. Slamming down the pitcher before Van did, Van was still sputtering, shaking his head against the dizziness.

Jeremiah stared at his friend in slight shock: it was the first time in a long time something like that had happened to Van.

Reid on the other hand was grinning triumphantly; the front of his shirt was wet from spilled beer. But suddenly his face fell, Mia searched the crowed for the cause of this and her eyes landed on the one and only Caleb Danvers.

"I call a redo!" He shouted over the ruckus earning himself a nasty glare from Reid.

"Fuck off Caleb." Reid sneered, making a face that reminded her of Sid Vicious. But the taller sturdier boy didn't budge his only retort was a glare of his own.

This time Van won, easily. During the whole contest, Caleb hadn't taken his _warning_ gaze off Reid…And it made her wonder. Reid couldn't have cheated the first time, could he? This was a chugging contest; you can't cheat in a chugging contest.

With a begrudging look in Caleb's direction Reid slammed a wad of bills in Van's palm before storming off looking anything but pleased.

"Someone can't handle losing well," Jeremiah said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, you're right." Mia said automatically, her mind too preoccupied with what had just taken place.

"You wanna hang out?" Jeremiah asked.

"No, I'm going to see how Reid's doing," Mia muttered not noticing the disapproving look on Jeremiah's face as she walked off. She needed to find out what that was about, the look on Reid's face when Caleb showed up. The way Caleb wouldn't take his eyes off Reid when he was drinking. There was something fishy about that.

"Mia," Someone said placing a large hand on her shoulder. She spun around and came face to face with Caleb.

"Yeah?"

"If you see Reid, can you tell him I want to talk to him? Tonight," Caleb said looking at her seriously.

"Okay, if I see him, I'll tell him." Mia said forcing a polite smile.

"Thanks." Caleb said with a nod before turning to a blond girl, his girlfriend, she assumed.

It didn't take her long to actually find the blond. He was standing outside leaning against the building staring at the ground as if it had done something unforgivable and he was thinking about ways to torture it.

A branch snapped under her foot and he looked up, glaring at her as soon as he had figured out who dared to approach him.

"You," he snapped as she stopped right in front of him.

"Me," she retorted lamely. "What are you doing out here?"

"Hiding from you stalker girl."

"I'm not stalking you Garwin!" Mia snapped rather loudly, causing Reid to flinch. She doubted the fact she could actually scare him in one way or an other so she assumed he was suffering from one of the less appealing aspects of downing too much alcohol in to little time. "Let me guess you're feeling miserable."

His head dropped and his eyes closed, he raised his head back up and swung his face in your direction, staring at you hard. "I'm not drunk."

"I didn't say you were," Mia said. "I said you're probably feeling miserable."

"Maybe," Reid muttered closing his eyes again. "Fuck man I hate Caleb."

"Caleb didn't force you to drink."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me." She was really fishing for information here.

"I said: you wouldn't understand," Reid said emphasising each word as if he was explaining something to a toddler.

"Someone's touchy," Mia said putting her hands on her sides.

"Well you'd be to if." He cut himself off, rubbed his forehead, and slumped down until he was sitting on the ground.

She didn't have it in her to actually feel sorry for him: he had brought this on himself.

"Are you alright?"

He raised his blue eyes to meet hers. "Do I look alright to you?" he snapped.

Mia shook her head slowly.

"I hate you Caleb," Reid muttered closing his eyes in pain.

"He's one of your best friends."

"Did I ask for your opinion?" Reid snapped.

"If you wanna be a jerk, fine than be one, not like I care." Mia huffed stumping her foot in a rather childish way. "But Tyler's a nice guy and I don't think he'll appreciate me leaving your sorry ass behind! So can you please keep the omg-I'm-such-a-tough-guy-comments to yourself?"

Reid looked at her with a raised eyebrow as if to say: where the fuck did that come from? But what left his lips was: "Fine".

Did he just agree with her? Shocking…

"So are you going to try and get up?"

"Head hurts," he whined. "Caleb, fucking asshole."

"You won't have to go far, just to the car, you'll just wait there, and I'll go fetch Tyler." Mia reasoned.

With a loud sigh, he managed to push himself of the ground and onto his unsteady feet. Automatically Mia moved to his side and slung an arm around her shoulders.

"Short stuff there's no fucking way you'll be able to keep me on my feet; we're both going to end up on the floor, and not in the fun way."

"Don't underestimate me Reid," Mia said making a small face, he was heavy, but she wasn't going to admit that just yet. He let out a small moan of pain, leaning his weight up hard against her body. She braced her feet and bit her lip, pushing back against him so he wouldn't knock her smaller frame to the ground. "Does your head hurt that bad?"

"No I'm faking it," Reid grumbled annoyed as she started dragging him to Tyler's car with a minimum of effort from his side.

She thanked every God she knew for the fact Tyler's car wasn't all that far away from their point of departure. She threw him against the car, rather roughly eliciting a small moan of pain from his side.

"Sorry," she said biting her lip.

"Yeah right," Reid grumbled leaning heavily against the car.

"Now you stay here, I'll go find -" Mia started ignoring his doubtful remark before he cut her off.

"The keys to the car are in my pocket, I borrowed them as soon as we entered this joint."

"Right borrowed," Mia repeated rolling her eyes.

"Right pocket, you might wanna consider just taking my cell and calling him instead of going on a wild goose-chase," Reid said while massaging his brow.

"You want me to get your keys out of your pocket?" Mia asked raising an eyebrow.

"And my cell."

"Why?" Mia asked really missing the point.

"If I have to look down I'll a) throw up, b) faint or c) a combination of the previous two. And you wouldn't want that now would you?"

Begrudgingly Mia reached into the right pocket of his jeans retrieving the two items.

"That wasn't so bad now was it?" Reid asked sounding rather smug even though he was in apparent pain.

"Oh shut up," Mia grumbled flipping open the phone and going through Reid's phonebook in search of Tyler. It didn't take her long to find it: "Baby Boy" she assumed that was Tyler.

"Couldn't you've let me into the car first no?" Reid grumbled as Mia ignored him and patiently waited for Tyler to pick up.

"_What now Reid?"_ Tyler answered annoyed, picking up after a mere four rings.

"It's Mia."

"_Oh hi Mia….What did he do?" _

"He entered a chugging contest and now he's feeling rather poorly."

"Caleb's fault, it's all fucking Caleb's fault!" Reid shouted obviously hurting his own head while doing so.

"And oh yes he keeps on blaming Caleb for some reason."

"_Where are you?"_

"By the car."

"_I'll be right there." Tyler said hanging up immediately._

"That boy seriously is too good for you," Mia muttered closing the phone earning herself yet another "Shut up woman" from Reid.

"And by the way: Caleb told me to tell you he wanted to talk to you, tonight."

"Well that's just fan-bloody-tastic."

**T.B.C**

**That was that for now…**

**So uhm tell me what you think hms?**

**Greetings!**

**XXX**

**Fish aka Anne.**


	5. Tutoring and Thunderstorms

* * *

_**So….This took me a while didn't it? A very long hiatus it was. But I promise you it wasn't planned. **_

_**Three**__** of my friends had a terrible year, and I was a bit too preoccupied with them to write anything down. I don't want to invade their privacy by telling you too much but lets just say someone very young lost his life in a tragic way, someone lost a father, and someone nearly died.**_

_**Life is precious kids, don't waste it!**_

_**(And yes I am aware of the fact that I myself am still a kid)**_

_**So without further redo, the very late chapter five!  
**_

**Chapter five: Tutoring and Thunderstorms  
**

God she was smart, her own intelligence baffled her some times.

Yesterday after the little 'party-hardy' evening with Tyler and Reid, she had called her brother, told him everything about the Ipswich Boys she knew, or she knew so far. He had been seemingly pleased with her progress but than he had remarked she didn't know: anything, nada, zilch about Pogue or the motor cycle kid as her brother referred to him. Apparently her brother's connections were good enough to figure out Pogue had been in the hospital after a high-speed accident with his bike. Something she herself had known but had never really put that much thought in.

But anyways, the day afterwards, Monday morning, she had 'accidentally' overheard Kate saying that Pogue was failing French, correction: he was failing French miserably. So miserably that he might not have a spot on the swim team during the next meet, if he didn't get his grade up. Which apparently stood just one spot bellow, hurting-his-motorcycle, on the Pogue Perry _"worst things list"_.

She on the other hand was amazing at French, amazing being an understatement, one of the positive things of having a half-French mother, though for a reason that was beyond her, James always misspelled_ oui_…This being one of her mother's greatest sources of shame. But back to the point, she had sprinted over to the French teacher and had him sign her up as a tutor. Unsurprisingly she had been the first to do this in three long years. Frankly she had never seen the relatively cranky Mr. Dubois this happy before, he had told her he would be sending over Pogue Perry that same day, going into great detail to describe how terrible he was in French.

If the boy was really as stupid as Mr. Dubois claimed, she was seriously going to regret this…

* * *

_(Mia's dorm, latter that day)  
_

From her comfortable spot on her bed she glanced at her alarm clock 4.20 p.m.

The Amazing Evil Knievel Wannabe from Ipswich was late, twenty freaking minutes late. And so she already disliked him on principle. To some people this might sound like she was overreacting but she for one was a very punctual person, well except when being confronted with a wardrobe dilemma like last night's.

And just when she was dozing off, a loud knocking brought her back to earth. Yet again she glanced at her alarm clock; ultimately Pogue Perry was twenty-five minutes late. Was being late an Ipswich thing?

She got up off her bed and opened the door only to reveal a sheepish looking Pogue, who as soon as he laid eyes on her frowned: "You?"

"My thoughts as well," Mia said, lying had become like a second nature to her by now.

"Your name is Maria Sanders?" He questioned.

"Maria Hélène Adélaïde Sanders, too be exact."

"Wow, that's a mouth full," he remarked amused before suddenly something seemed to hit him: "Did Reid use the pick-up line on you?"

Were these people obsessed with that lame pick-up line of his?!

"No he didn't, and yes I am aware of the fact that in my case the pick-up line would've been true."

"Ah you've heard before?"

"Yep, so you want to come in? Because you are here for tutoring I presume?"

"Well yeah," Pogue said stepping into her dorm. "Didn't expect to see you though."

"The feeling is mutual," she said closing the door behind her. "If I had known it was you I would be tutoring I would've refused, I don't want to give Garwin even more reason to insinuate I'm a stalker."

"Just ignore him, he's weird like that."

"Mais donc, vous voulez commencer avec vos leçons?"

"Eh, quand arrive l'autubus?" Pogue offered sheepishly.

"You're really bad at this, aren't you?" Mia asked raising a single eyebrow. Mr Dubois hadn't exaggerated.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Well I asked you if you wanted to start with your lessons and you respond with asking me when the bus arrives, that doesn't really indicate you understand a word I'm saying."

"Well it's the only French sentence I know."

"Oh dear."

"Sorry," Pogue said apologetically while Mia took a seat behind her desk.

"No worries, just grab a chair and we'll start off with the basics shall we?"

"I think that's a good idea," Pogue said grabbing a chair besides her.

"Do you know the verbe avoir?"

"Eh…-"

"Etre?"

"Well…-"

"Okay," Mia sighed. "We have our work cut out for us don't we."

"Sorry."

"It's okay," Mia said with a sympathetic smile, though she didn't know who she felt more sympathy for, Pogue, or herself…

* * *

_(two hours latter)  
_

By now Pogue was lying on her ex-roommate's bed while she was quizzing him from her own.

"Donc, la conjugaison d'être." She demanded looking at him intently.

"Je suis, tu es, il est, elle est, nous somme,-"

"Nous sommes," She corrected.

"Sorry."

"En français!"

"Je…m'excuse?"

"Très bien, donc?"

"Nous sommes, vous etes,"

"Non, vous êtes, avec un accent circonflexe Monsieur Perry."

"Vous etes, ils sont et elle sont."

"Une belle effort, mes félicitations," she said pleased he was finally remembering things. She had taught him être, avoir and the general conjugations of the verbs. "Et passé compose?"

"Je suis,-"

"J'ai."

"Uh oui, j'ai été?"

"Thank goodness!" She announced proudly. "Congratulations, you now know the bare basics of French."

"Sorry I'm such a bad student," Pogue said sitting up.

"Don't worry about it, most people suck at French."

"So how come you're good at it?"

"My mom's half-French," Mia answered. What he hadn't guessed after the whole Maria-Hélène- Adélaïde-Sanders-thing? She had an inkling she had just discovered who the dumbest son of Ipswich was. "She taught me and my brother, thought it might come in handy some day."

"And your dad?"

Isn't he a nosy fellow.

"He's an American but went to school in England, he and my mom moved to America after they got married to open a clinic."

"Your dad is a doctor?"

"Kind off, he's a plastic surgeon."

"That's admiral," Pogue stated. "Wanting to relieve the world of wrinkles and saggy skin."

Mia couldn't help but laugh at this. "If you put it that way."

"So," he mumbled. "Do you think I have a shot at passing French?"

"Maybe," she answered gently. "After a whole lot of hard work."

"So what do you suggest professor?"

"You come over every other day for about two hours of intensive tutoring?"

"Am I really that terrible?" Pogue asked amused.

"Honestly?"

"I don't wanna know," Pogue laughed. "So the day after tomorrow same place, same hour?" He asked getting up.

"Perfect, and I'll hand you some reading material tomorrow okay?"

"Do I have a choice?" Pogue asked amused.

"Nope," she said with a smug smile as she opened the door for him.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Indeed."

* * *

_(The next day, Maths)  
_

If it was a good thing, or a bad thing she hadn't figured out yet. But she hadn't seen Pogue all day and believe her she had been looking about everywhere. But Pogue Perry and apparently Caleb Danvers were nowhere to be found. She was hoping to squeeze some information out of Tyler today.

"Hey Tyler," Mia said as the baby-blue-eyed boy threw himself down on the seat next to her, visibly tired; there were bags beneath his eyes and he looked quite pale.

"Hey Mia," he muttered stifling a yawn.

"You look rough," not having to lie for once.

"Long night," Tyler answered trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.

"Sounds Garwin-ish," Mia said shaking her head. Yes he was a son of Ipswich, and Garwin's best friend, but she had expected better from the more soft spoken boy.

"It wasn't like that believe me."

She was just about to inquire after Perry when the teacher Mrs Newton came waltzing in with her usual cheeriness. Mrs Newton was distinctively dotty, to say the least: screaming fluorescent colours flower patterns hippie skirts. One would expect a bit more _"sophistication" _from such a high-class school but Mrs Newton made up for her strangeness by being a genius. And she was actually, despite her oddness, well liked by her students because she was so well for lack of a better word: nice.

"Good afternoon my little monsters," she announced dropping her multicoloured bag onto her desk.

A vague mumbling of good afternoon was produced by her students causing her to frown: "Is that the best you can do?"

Another mumbling was produced, this time louder seemingly clear enough to please her this time.

Mia vaguely noted her saying something about a tangent line and derivatives, but her mind was elsewhere, it usually was during maths.

Where on earth was Pogue Perry and why was Caleb Danvers there with him? They could be playing hookey but the sons of Ipswich always did everything together and Tyler and Garwin were still here, plus Danvers didn't seem the type do something like that. Did one of them mess up last night? Did something happen? Or maybe she was looking to far into this and they were just out and about with their girlfriends.

Her eyes scanned the classroom spotting Sarah soon enough, but Kate wasn't in class…Her curiosity couldn't be contained any longer.

"Tyler," she whispered snapping him out of a dreamlike trance.

"Yeah?"

"I've been looking for Pogue all day, but I can't find him. Where is he?"

"What do you need Pogue for?" Tyler asked frowning.

"I'm tutoring him in French, but don't tell Garwin I could really do without more stalker jokes."

"Well he's-,"

"Do I have a spanking new romance in my classroom?" Mrs Newton suddenly announced amused. Mia felt her face turn red. Mrs Newton wasn't one to mind students not paying attention, she was pretty cool about it even: stating a student couldn't pay attention all day every day.

"Uhm no," Tyler said also sporting a certain shade of bright red on his face.

"Yeah there is, it's been going on for days now," Reid suddenly announced loudly from the other side of the classroom. "But they're in denial."

A very large part of her thought it wise to jump up, stalk over to the other side of the classroom and smack some sense into that blond buffoon. But the more logical part of her refrained her from doing so for the sake of her internship.

"Don't listen to him Mrs Newton, he's just jealous I'm talking to his baby boy," Mia snapped glaring at the blond.

"What are you insinuating, Mia?" Garwin said narrowing his eyes at her.

"What do you think Reid?" Mia said rolling her eyes. She could here a stifled laugh coming from behind her, she didn't need to look behind her to know it was Joan who was generating the weird sound.

"Do I sense a bit of tension?" Mrs Newton asked peering at them from over her glasses.

"A bit? That's an understatement they're like cat and dog," Tyler stated dryly.

"Tyler?!"

"Baby Boy?!"

"Well at least the two of you can agree on one thing," Mrs Newton said giggling, yes giggling, she was the only teacher Mia had ever known to giggle.

Mia responded only by frowning and shaking her head and of course by playfully smacking Tyler across the head.

"Hey, what was that for?"

"For saying that."

"So you smacked me for stating the obvious?" Tyler asked visibly amused.

"Well yeah," Mia retorted moodily. "But you never told me where Pogue is?"

"He's visiting family," Tyler answered.

"With Caleb and Kate?" Mia asked innocently.

This seemed to beat him out the water: he looked at her with a mixture of confusion and wonder on his face. "How do you know?"

"I noticed they weren't here either while I was looking for Pogue," she said shrugging it off innocently.

"Well yeah they went with him, don't ask why because I don't know," Tyler said quickly turning his attention back to Mrs Newton, who had resumed her teaching after the atmosphere in the class had calmed down.

Something was up, she couldn't put her finger on what was up but she had a hunch Tyler didn't want her to find out. If that boy thought he could fool her just like that, he didn't know Mia Sanders.

* * *

_(That evening in the corridors)  
_

She zipped her hoodie up before closing the door behind her. She was going to see Joan tonight to talk about this juice piece of gossip Joan had uncovered from her boyfriend, Tom. Apparently there had been a massive fight between Danvers and Garwin.

Tom's dorm was right next to Tyler and Garwin's, he had picked up some yelling and apparently some 'stuff' had been thrown against a wall. A fall out between the Sons of Ipswich could be big.

There was not a person to be seen in the corridors, probably at Nicky's or dare she say it studying. The school could be quite creepy when it was abandoned like this and only dimly light. There was even a thunder storm, it was the perfect décor for a bad horror flick.

God why was Joan's dorm a floor above hers? She didn't mind a bit of thunder every now and then, but this was starting to freak her out, it had been going on for an hour now.

Damn it was cold, she pulled her hands into her sleeves: a strange sort of shiver went through her body: from her toes to the top of her head. She had this eerie feeling someone was following her but it was probably just the weather playing tricks on her fragile twitchy mind. Nevertheless she quickened her pace.

Mia hunny you're acting like a toddler.

And just as she went up the stairs she could swear she saw a strange shadow and just as she saw it, the lights went out she could barely muffle a cry as she stormed up the stairs crashing into someone head on. And as they tumbled to the floor she let out a scream but than a single light flashed on.

"Reid?" She asked recognizing the blond which she was currently laying on the floor with.

"You again," he muttered before frowning. "Scared of the dark?"

"No," she answered panting as she sat up.

"You look kind off freaked though," he said also sitting up. "Something wrong?"

"You're gonna think I'm crazy."

"I already think you're crazy."

"I had a feeling someone was following me and than the lights went out but there was this shadow and oh god I'm not making any sense right now," she said laughing at her own stupidity.

"Just the weather playing tricks on you," Reid said though he didn't seem so convinced himself.

"It was really –,"

"What happened?" A soft voice cut in from behind them.

Mia looked over her shoulder and saw a very worried looking Kira dressed only in a bathrobe with her hair wrapped in a towel. "I heard a scream."

"That would've been me," Mia said embarrassed. "The lights went out and I crashed into Reid on the stairs."

"You scared the shit out of me Mia," Kira said visibly relieved. "C'mon, you're coming with me, sorry to steal your girl like that Reid but she looks kinda pale." She extended her hand to Mia and pulled her up.

"No problem, I've got plenty more waiting for me," he said with that grin that defined him.

Kira smiled but than she turned to look at Mia and her eyes went wide; "Mia you're bleeding!" She stated loudly grabbing Mia's right arm.

Mia frowned as she spotted a gash on her lower arm that had not only ripped through the fabric of her hoodie but had also sliced her skin. The blue fabric of her sleeve was soaked and had a red tinge to it.

"How the fuck did that happen?" Mia asked herself out loud.

"Doesn't it hurt?" Kira asked visibly worried.

"I didn't even feel when it happened."

"Kira why don't you take Mia to your dorm and look after that yeah? She needs some company," Reid said frowning. "I have to go and see Caleb. Take care," he muttered before hurrying down the stairs.

How odd...Why would he want to see Caleb? Didn't they have a fight? Maybe they already patched things up, but Reid seemed to stubborn to make amends so easily.

"C'mon chica, let's go take care of that arm of yours," Kira stated draping an arm around her shoulders and leading her into her dorm.

"Where's your roommate?" Mia asked noticing the dorm was deserted.

"Kelly's at her boyfriend's doing something nasty probably," Kira said grinning as she ushered Mia onto her bed. "What were you doing out and about?"

"I was going to see Joan," Mia responded as Kira started going through a drawer.

"Well you're not going anywhere, if you really want to talk to her I'll get her," Kira stated retrieving a first aid kit from said drawer. "I know well enough you have a tendency of fainting, and since you've just lost some blood, you ain't going anywhere. You can sleep in Kelly's bed tonight."

"Kira, I'm fine," Mia muttered as she took off her hoodie.

"Just throw it on the floor," Kira said as she waltzed into the tiny bathroom before returning with a towel and a wet rag. "You're bleeding like a pig," Kira stated sitting down next to Mia on the bed.

Well she wasn't exaggerating: her whole lower arm was a bloody mess while the cut wasn't even all that large.

"So what's the deal between you and Reid, you owe me an explanation remember?" Kira grinned as she cleaned up Mia's arm.

"There's nothing going on really," Mia said winching as Kira went over the cut.

"Sorry," she said. "He did look kind off worried to me."

"Reid, worried, about me?!" Mia snorted. "Probably worried I got blood over his clothes or something."

"He isn't that bad you know," Kira stated drying her arm off.

"And how would you know?" Mia asked rolling her eyes as Kira put a pad of cotton wool on the cut.

Kira just grinned causing Mia's eyes to go wide.

"Kira you didn't?" Mia said looking flabbergasted.

Kira fell into a fit of giggles; "You should see your face," she said between giggles.

"You scared me there," Mia muttered while Kira started bandaging her arm, still giggling though.

"I've never been on the Garwin boat sweetie, but I did hear a thing or two about him," she said with a sly smile. "Apparently he's pretty good, never heard a complaint about little Reid either, if you could call him little Reid," she said before bursting out in giggles again.

"You did not just say that," Mia said rubbing her temples with her one free-hand.

"Oh c'mon Mia, admit it he's pretty cute and he fills out those little swim shorts quite nicely."

"Oh you're a nightmare," Mia said laughing herself this time.

"So I've heard before," Kira said cheekily.

**_T.B.C.M.S_**

**_Which means: to be continued much sooner :p_**

**_Yet again my apologizes for this super long hiatus, it won't happen again._**

**_And for those of you who have ever read my other story: "Burn this Girl" you know with that weird-ghost girl from the past whose haunting Reid? It will be continued to very soon!_**

**_PS If some errors sneaked into my French, it's not my native language, hell English isn't my native language either so if some errors sneaked into there, don't hate me for it! :) _****_Maybe I need to look into finding a Beta reader but I'm probably to lazy to do something like that…_**

**_Greetings, love and hugs,_**

**_The Fishie!_**


	6. Cuts and Drugs

_**So here it is: **__**The return of the apparently liked Jeremiah, an out of it Reid and a confused Mia, ENJOY!**_

**Chapter six: Cuts and Drugs**

The evening continued with a motherly Kira not allowing Mia to leave the dorm but after about fifteen minutes of complaining she had to talk to Joan, Kira relented slightly and decided to fetch Joan herself. Strangely enough all of this resulted in a girl's night in; in the end, the three of them were laying on the mattresses they had shoved together on the floor, gossiping about the Sons of Ipswich. Apparently Kira was a wonderful source who knew all the dirt on them, though she didn't share Aaron's conviction the boys had killed Chase Collins: yes there had been rivalry and there was something odd about the situation, but in Kira's eyes the Sons of Ipswich were innocent.

This was great and all but somehow they forgot to set the alarm clock and ended up oversleeping…Three hours of class had already passed when Kira's roommate, Kelly, who had gotten worried found them.

She couldn't believe she had wasted three hours on sleep while she could be figuring out where the hell Pogue and Caleb had disappeared to yesterday. The thought alone made her cringe.

"Where were you all day?" Tyler asked when she dropped herself ungracefully into her seat next to him.

At least he had noticed her disappearance.

"Overslept," Mia answered stifling a yawn.

"Reid told me you looked kind off freaked out yesterday," Tyler said casually.

"Oh so you talk about me? Who's the stalker now?" Mia said giving Tyler a cheeky smile as she retrieved her books from her bag.

"Just worried about you."

Did he just say that? Or was her imagination playing tricks on her?

"Worried?" She repeated raising a single eyebrow.

"Look Reid might be a jerk, but apparently you've grown on him," Tyler said awkwardly making it obvious he was lying through his teeth.

"Just admit you're nosy Tyler, you really can't lie all that well."

"Why does everyone keep saying that?" Tyler said with a chuckle. "Am I really that transparent?"

"Don't worry it's a charming quality," Mia said reassuringly with a friendly smile. "And if you really want to know; I was just freaked out by the weather, thunderstorms always do that to me." Now she was the one lying through her teeth but luckily she was better at it than Tyler. "By the way is Pogue back? I really need to talk to him about his upcoming French test."

"Oh yeah he's back, he was looking for you about that," Tyler said.

During class she noticed Tyler's eyes kept on shifting towards her lower arm, she ignored it, pretended to be actually engrossed by the math formulas on the blackboard. Reid must've told him about the cut, but why would Tyler care? It's just a cut. Casually she pushed up her sleeves, revealing her bandaged arm, testing out her little theory.

"Hurt?" He asked in a whisper with a nod towards her arm.

"Just a cut, don't even know how I got it," she said with a smile before turning her attention back to the blackboard. Though out of the corner of her eye she watched Tyler, he was acting well weird. He was looking around nervously, biting his lip. Something was up, what, she still had to figure out.

It was after class when Pogue had finally caught up wit her.

"Look Mia, I know you'll probably think I'm a lazy brat but I'm going to have to cancel today's tutoring session," he had said.

"Okay by me, but what about your French test?"

Something fishy was going on with Pogue Perry.

"I'll fail miserably, no doubt about it," he chuckled nervously. "But Kate needs me."

The whole thing had made her wonder….She decided to talk a walk, to clear her head. But apparently a moment's peace was too much to ask. She was just minding her own damn business, just enjoying the cool fresh air when she saw the oddest thing; Reid Garwin and Jeremiah, her Jeremiah sitting on a bench, smoking, hopefully, cigarettes and just talking oblivious to the adoring looks a couple of freshman girls were giving them from another bench nearby.

"Mia!" Jeremiah called loudly snapping her out of her train of thought. "What are you standing over there like a stork for? Get that ass over here."

Like a stork? Honestly how does he come up with stuff like that?

"Jeremiah why are you hanging out with Reid?" She blurted out as she walked over to them: okay the two of them got a long, no denying that but Reid fought with his best friend. Doesn't that count for anything in a man's world?

"I dunno," he answered with a shrug. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

And that ladies and gentlemen is Jeremiah for you, she loves him to bits but about 90 of everything he does and says is just so…vague. And considering the fact Garwin had yet to speak, let alone say something Garwin-ish, she had an inkling he had spent a little too much time with Jeremiah.

She looked him over and her thoughts were confirmed: dazed expression, heavily lidded eyes…Jeremiah the '_tambourine man'_, had done it yet again…

"Hey," Reid mumbled. "you're that girl with the same name as my grandma!"

Oh brother….

She blinked. "You didn't just give him weed did you?"

Jeremiah scratched his head. "Don't think I did, no."

"Miah, sweetie," she said slowly as if talking to a small child, "this is important: what did you give him?"

For a second he frowned, giving her hope, but then he just shrugged: "I dunno."

God, she hated that expression with a passion!

Her expression turned into one of slight desperation. "Jeremiah, how far gone is he?" She asked rubbing her brow.

"I'd say somewhere between very far away and way out of here," he stated seemingly serious but then dissolving into giggles and with something that could be described as a mixture of amusement and disbelief, she watched Reid follow suit. She couldn't help but snicker at this: a giggling Reid Garwin was a whole lot less threatening than a scowling one.

"Reid can you stand up?"

Reid surprisingly compliant, did as told and stood up with surprising ease. But it seemed as though that when he was standing up, the full effects of what he had done hit him…hard.

His face turned the oddest shade of ashen and he looked, well…wobbly.

"I don't feel so good," he muttered.

"Jere, give him a hand will you."

Jeremiah did as told and swung one of Reid's arms over his shoulders letting Reid lean heavily on him, though the latter didn't seem to notice, he was too busy looking around like a hyperactive puppy.

"You're purple," Reid suddenly said with an expression of pure awe on his face.

Mia raised a single eyebrow: "No, I'm not, it's just my hoodie."

"It's sooooo shiny!"

She didn't know what Jeremiah gave him, but she needed to figure it out ASAP, this Reid was starting to become creepy.

Though Jeremiah was the apparent cause of Reid's current condition, he also proved to be quite handy, he could drag the blonde's ass around instead of her; delegating was the solution to all her problems apparently.

She then decided to head over to Jeremiah's dorm to a) question Bob on what exactly Reid had taken and b) to dump them with him. This however didn't go exactly as planned. Sure Bob did open the door, and he really did listen to her story while of course glaring daggers at Reid which was admiral seeing most men couldn't do two things at the same time. But the answer to the question what did they take was answered with: "I dunno."

"You have no idea how I hate, that answer so just take a wild guess will you?" She ordered trying to bite back as much of her annoyance as she could.

"Mia! The walls are breathing," Reid stated staring at said walls with wide-eyes and a slacked jaw.

"No Reid they're not breathing," she said overly emphasizing on each word.

Bob frowned. "Has he said more stuff like that?"

Mia sighed in frustration. "Yeah he's been saying stuff like that the entire time, he's driving me insane."

"Than I'm taking a not so wild guess, my bet's on they've eaten magic mushrooms and judging by the smell of them smoked some weed."

"So basically you're saying they probably cooked themselves a mushroom omelette with some special seasoning?" Mia questioned: the idiocy of men.

"You could say it like that," Bob said with a chuckle.

"So," Mia said awkwardly. "Mind taking them off my hands?"

"I'm willing to take in the gentle giant but the horny blond isn't welcome here," Bob said decidedly.

"But," Mia started but she trailed off when Reid decided to hug her from behind resting his head against her's. "Bob you can't leave me with this!" She said sounding oddly panicky: Okay a doped up Reid was great for her article but not so much when he was hanging off of her.

"Sorry," he said, "but no."

"Look my body's purple!"

"No Reid," Mia said closing her eyes as if in great pain. "That yet again is just my hoodie."

"Ohhhh…"

"Sorry," Bob said yet again.

"Yeah, yeah whatever," Mia said grumpily taking Reid by a hand and dragging him off while muttering all sorts of insults under her breath.

Thirty minutes, that's how long the usual three minute walk to Reid's dorm took her. Apparently being doped up on magic mushrooms meant being very curious and having many many hallucinations…

"Here we are Reid, home sweet home," she said dragging him into his dorm. Sadly enough Tyler wasn't in. She couldn't just leave him here on his own, he was too out of it for that…She looked at him debating what to do with him when all of a sudden out of the blue he took of his jacket, and his shirt…"Reid Garwin, what are you doing?" She asked slightly baffled as he toyed with his belt buckle.

"Going to bed," he answered dropping his pants to the floor, thank god he was wearing boxers she really didn't want to test out Kira's theory.

"To do what?"

"Sleep," he answered kicking of his shoes and socks.

"Thank god," Mia said visibly relieved as Reid crawled into bed.

Mia sighed and sat down on the other bed, Tyler's she assumed watching Reid get comfortable. But instead of closing his eyes he turned them to her.

"What do you want from Tyler."

She looked at him for a minute or so though it felt like an eternity: did he just ask her that? He was supposed to be doped up not his usual suspicious self!

"Nothing Reid," she said managing to put a smile on her face. "Just go to sleep."

Fifteen minutes of doing nothing: waiting for him to fall asleep so she could just snoop around a bit. And than finally his breathing became even and he started to portray all the tell tale signs of sleeping.

She unzipped her hoodie dropping it unceremoniously onto the floor seeing Reid's clothes were already sprawled onto it.

As quietly as possible she got up and started to well 'snoop', starting with Reid's pants as dirty as it may sound but she knew his cell phone was in there somewhere.

She couldn't help but grin victoriously when the ultra-tiny black device was resting in the palm of her hand. She flipped through his phonebook which was unsurprisingly filled with girl's names.

Then on to his text messages…also filled with 'odd' messages from seemingly desperate girls, but then Caleb's name popped up and the text message even more bizarre than the NC-17 texts from his groupies.

It was about her…

"_Mia has a cut 2? Hurry must talk asap. Grtz C." _

It's just a cut, what's so interesting about it? Either she's a complete idiot or the boys were speaking in cods or something…It's just a cut, nothing odd about it, well except the fact she doesn't know how she possibly could've gotten it.

She stuffed the cell back in Reid's pants and continued her search of the room, even daring to open one of Reid's drawers finding what she had only expected to find condoms…well at least he was doing it safe. But much to her surprise she also found a book in there "American Psycho", by Bret Easton Ellis, come to think about it he did have a few Bateman-traits to him, though she sincerely hoped for her own wellbeing he wasn't as fucked up as the main character.

Tyler's nightstand drawer was slightly more disturbing; no condoms, no playboys but books on the history of Ipswich, books about the occult. She never pegged him as the type of person to be interested in stuff like this. She flipped through an old looking one, with a battered green cover: the first page spoke of a covenant of some sort in the next pages there were strange drawings and spells or something, some were odd and some just plain disturbing. She closed the book and put it back not really wanting to read on. She didn't believe in witchcraft, but it did kind off freak her out…

She plopped onto Tyler's bed, thinking: her cut, the books…was there something connecting them?

Don't be silly sweetheart a cut isn't a big deal and the occult has nothing to do with cuts…or that was her general perspective. Honestly the occult was one big mystery for her, she had always just dismissed it as a load of bullshit but apparently Tyler didn't…

She nearly fell of the bed when the door flew open: all of this was murder on her nerves!

It was Tyler who was too busy looking at the clothes on the floor to notice her: "Aw Reid c'mon we agreed no girls in the-,"

"Tyler," she said waving at him.

"Mia?" He questioned confusion evident on his face.

"Believe me it's totally not what you think."

"Than what are you doing here?"

"I'm the stalker girl Reid always said I was," she answered rolling her eyes. "Reid was hanging out with Jere-dopehead-miah, was high of his ass thanks to some magic mushrooms mixed with a hint of weed so I dragged his ass over here. That's today's events in a nutshell."

"Did you say magic mushrooms?"

"Yeah, I-,"

"That idiot!" Tyler fumed, surprising her to some extend apparently sweet gentle Tyler could get angry. "Fucking idiot, he knows we can't handle that shit."

"What do you mean?" Mia asked intrigued: we can't handle that shit? They'd tried before?

Tyler looked at her, his face slightly paler, his eyes slightly wider than a minute ago; the expression of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"That Reid's an idiot, for doing something that's illegal and that he should've known better," Tyler stated stammering slightly.

She nearly laughed out loud: Tyler really couldn't lie. But she decided to leave it to rest, classifying his statement as proof Reid wasn't new to drugs.

"Anyway, thanks for looking after him, he might not appreciate it but I do," Tyler said awkwardly.

"Thanks," Mia said with a genuine smile as Tyler sat down beside her.

"How long has he been out?"

"An hour, I guess."

"He didn't do anything stupid, did he?"

She smirked: "Well he did hug me."

"Seriously?" Tyler asked amused.

"Yes, from behind, scared the crap out of me."

"I can imagine," Tyler said. "So how's the cut? Does it hurt?"

Again with that freaking cut, what was the big deal?! There had to be something special about it for them to be so interested in it.

"Just a bit sore that's all, I'm glad it didn't need stitches."

"Scared of needles?"

"No, my dad's a plastic surgeon if I got stitches here he would constantly complain about how butchered I look."

Tyler chuckled: "Oh so your dad is doctor Sanders? From the Clearwater clinic?"

"The one and only," Mia said before frowning. "How do you know?"

Tyler grinned sheepishly: "My mom."

"Oh…., well there's nothing wrong with that, my mom has had tons of cosmetic surgery," she said light-heartedly.

But there light hearted conversation was interrupted by a growling voice: "What the fuck are you doing here?"

Good morning Reid Garwin, you're such an ungrateful asshole.

* * *

**(The Library)**

There was something odd surrounding the 'Sons of Ipswich', something really odd. But what? She couldn't quite put her finger on it. So far she had spend two hours reading up on the 'Sons of Ipswich' in the library. And so far she had only found a load of bull about witchcraft. Was this were Tyler had gotten his fascination with the occult from? Because frankly she didn't peg them as the type to cruise around on broomsticks, even though Garwin tended to act like he had a stick of some sort stuck up his ass.

"Fuck this," she sighed before resting her head on the book: this was a waist of time.

"Reading up on the boys huh?" Someone asked plopping down besides her. Immediately she sat up straight feeling caught in the act but she was stubbornly reassured she could pass it off as nothing. It had been Sara, Caleb's girlfriend who had sat down next to her.

Wasn't she miss popular all of a sudden.

"Yeah, I promised Aaron to read this, I think he's worried I might like them," she said with a smile. "He probably hoped this would freak me out big time."

Sara smiled charmingly. "It sure freaked me out when I read it."

"Aha, but you're dating Caleb so it didn't turn you off of them."

"Believe me it takes more than a couple of urban legends to get between me and my man," Sara joked light-heartedly.

Mia watched her with interest: sure Sara was all sugar and spice and all things nice but this was the first time she had taken the time to talk to her. So she couldn't help but expect a motive of some sort.

"So you and Tyler," Sara said seemingly randomly.

And there was the motive. Blondie sure did have a secret agenda.

"Me and Tyler?" Mia repeated feigning confusion.

"Well yeah, you two seem awfully chummy."

"Just friends."

"You sure he feels that way about it too?" Sara questioned pressing the matter. Okay girl was pretty but she really didn't have a clue on how to be subtle.

"Positive, I think he's convinced I'm trying to get into Garwin's pants," Mia said dryly.

Sara laughed; "I heard you two don't get along."

"You can definitely say that. Though he did seem slightly concerned when I got this cut," she emphasized this calculated statement by taping the bandage covering the damaged skin.

Now let's see if Sara shared the boys their interest in her cut, shall we?

"Ouch! How did you get that?"

As if you don't already know.

"Well it was really weird, I ran into Reid and there it was. Don't really know when and how I got it actually. I think Kira is suspicious that I'm acting kind off emo."

"You're friends with Kira?" Sara asked seemingly genuinely surprised by that little titbit of information.

"Comes with the turf," Mia said shrugging it off as if it were nothing but she could tell Sara's opinion of her had taken a beating because of said friendship.

"Oh right you're friends with Aaron."

"Yeah, who told?" Mia asked innocently, someone was telling stories about her and she intended to figure out who.

"The boys," Sara admitted apologetically. "Oh you must think we're like the biggest gossips."

"It's okay, I'm sure-,"

She was cut off by a sharp loud cracking sound: thunder.

"That's two nights in a row," Sara said biting her lip.

"Yeah the weather is really acting up isn't it?" Mia stated casually, noting the strange anxious look on Sara's face.

"I should be heading back to my dorm, Kate's scared of thunderstorms," Sara said with a faint smile. "I guess I'll see you around."

"Yeah see you around," Mia said with a friendly smile.

Okay so there was not only something odd surrounding 'The Sons of Ipswich", but also their girlfriends were acting strangely…But why?

_**T.B.C**_

_**Well that was chapter six in chapter seven things will really get started in my opinion so uhm stay tuned I guess **__**Drop me a line on your thoughts: good or bad, I don't care!**_

_**Greetings, love and hugs!**_

_**Fishie!**_


	7. Monster

_And her eyes fell on the object that had grabbed their attention: a body._

**I love this chapter I really really do, so I ****hope you like it too**

**Chapter Seven: Monster **

Forty-five minutes. That's the amount of time she had spend camping out in the library waiting for that damned thunderstorm to pass. Because due to some very inconvenient maintenance work she couldn't use the hallway connecting the library to the wing that housed the dorms. And she'd rather stay in the dingy smelling library than get caught in a thunderstorm since they didn't seem to bring her luck. So yes after forty-five minutes she was able to take that longish walk to the dorms, alone, in the dark. She wasn't peachy keen on doing that since walking alone in the dark did tend to freak her out since last nights events. But as soon as she was out the door she spotted a very familiar flashlight wheeling form.

"Tyler?" She called.

The form spun around, he looked somewhat disappointed to see her. "Oh, hey Mia," he said looking around nervously. "What are you doing out so late?"

"Got stuck in the library thanks to that horrible weather we've been having."- She frowned. -"Are you looking for something?"

"What? Oh no."

Yet again: he's a really bad liar.

"Than what are you doing outside at this hour with a flashlight?"

He looked at her: his brow furrowed and his mouth pressed into a thin line, obviously raking his mind in search of a good excuse. "Okay, you got me," he finally said sheepishly raking a hand through his hair. "I lost my car keys and I was trying to save my image."

She smiled: "Don't worry the clumsy image really suits you. Want me to help you look?"

"Oh no it's okay," he said giving her the feeling he was trying to get rid of her.

What are you hiding Tyler Simms?

"You sure?" She asked.

"Positive."

But right as she was turning to leave something, out of the corner of her eyes caught her attention: a movement, a fast rapid shadow moving fast behind the trees causing a slightly rustling noise.

"Did you hear that?" She asked unconsciously walking closer to where she had seen it.

"Hear what?" Tyler asked his face turning serious, more serious than she had ever seen it, she didn't think it over, too transfixed by what had just happened.

"There's someone hiding in the park."

"Stay here," Tyler said grabbing her by an arm. "I'll go take a look."

"Never mind Tyler," she said tearing free from his grasp. "It was probably nothing, it's the weather it plays tricks on me," she stated realising the absurdity of her own statement.

Tyler didn't seem convinced though, his gaze was fixed on the dark area that was only dimly lit by moonlight.

"Earth to Tyler," she said waving a small pale hand in front of his face.

"Sorry, zoomed out for a minute," he said, his reassuring smile unconvincing.

Again she heard something: footsteps. Coming closer and closer, she looked around with a frown. This time Tyler had heard them too, she vaguely made note of him balling his fists.

'What are you doing?" A familiar voice bellowed.

"Aaron, you scared the shit out of us!" Mia stated, hands on her hips. But he bolted right past and in one fast movement he grabbed Tyler by his collar.

"What are you doing with her you sick fuck?" He demanded furiously ignoring Mia's attempts to break his grip on Tyler's shirt.

"What the fuck are you talking about Abbot?" Tyler said though there was something resembling dread in his voice.

"You know damn well what you did," Aaron said through gritted teeth; his face red with anger, his nostrils flaring, his free hand balled into a fist dangling threateningly at his side.

"Aaron what's wrong with you?" Mia asked trying to work her way in-between the two boys in an attempt to diffuse the situation. "You're talking in riddles."

"Maybe that's because I saw their handy work over there," he said gesturing to something somewhere in the distance. "The police is already here, you're not getting away with it this time you freaks."

Tyler's face went pale, no longer making any effort to get out of Aaron's grip.

"What's going on here?" Mia asked tentatively wonder what could possibly make Aaron's blood boil like this and what could make Tyler look so defeated.

Aaron looked at her. "Go to your dorm Mia, and take the other way."

"Aaron, that's a major detour."

"Mia for once in your life listen to me."

"Do what he says Mia", Tyler said evenly as he stared at the ground melancholically.

"You stay out of this!" Aaron spat.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Mia asked frowning, knowing that there was something seriously wrong neither of them wanted to tell her. "Tell me!"

"I'll tell you later," Aaron said calmly. "Now just go to your dorm."

Mia gave them one last confused look before running off, exactly in the direction neither of them wanted her to go. Ignoring Aaron's calls for her to stop and turn around. She ran, as fast as she could to a source of light and as she came closer, she saw flashlights, people, cop cars standing in a circle around something. Her stomach dropped, she pushed her way through the circle or onlookers, Aaron's friends she vaguely recognized. And her eyes fell on the object that had grabbed their attention: a body.

"Oh my god," she muttered as someone roughly grabbed her wrist and pulled her back; it hurt, but she was too far gone to notice.

"I told you," Aaron muttered pulling her in a hug. "You never listen."

"Is that,-?" She asked breathless; from running so hard or from emotion, she couldn't tell right now.

"Yeah, we think it is."

"How can you, I mean you can't tell for sure, it looks so," she said, her voice shaking.

"The tattoos," Aaron stated wile rubbing her back in an attempt to, do what? Comfort her, silence her, calm her down? "We recognized the tattoos."

"What happened to her, her face…," she trailed off.

"Shttt, it's okay."

"I just talked to her, in the library, she was okay, there was nobody else."

"You talked to her?"

"Her face Aaron, her face, who could do something like that?"

"An animal", he answered softly pressing a brotherly kiss to her forehead. "It's okay now."

No Aaron, nothing was okay. Sarah was dead, and when she closed her eyes, she could see her laying on the cold ground, naked, a pentagram carved into her stomach with deep gashes. Her face, two deep cuts running from the corners of her mouth to her ears, a sick parody of a smile.

She looked up and saw Tyler standing there, she couldn't read his face couldn't see if it was one of guilt or one of sadness. He was still as pale as death, he was still staring at the ground.

"C'mon hun, let's go to your dorm. I'll stay with you tonight." Aaron said draping an arm around her smaller frame, dragging her away from the scene, away from Tyler, Sarah and the rest of the world. She let him, she let him guide her to her dorm like an obedient little lamb.

"You're not going anywhere alone anymore, okay?" Aaron said slowly while his thumb gently caressed the wrist he had bruised earlier on. "And I don't want you staying up in this dorm alone, you can crash with Kira, Joan, or I can come crash with you or Jeremiah can."

Aaron telling her Jeremiah should sleep over in her dorm, if it were any other situation she would've laughed out loud.

"Who do you think did it?" She asked, sitting down on her bed. Though she already knew what his answer was going to be.

He sighed, sitting down next to her. "I know you don't want to hear it, but who else Mia? Who else would've done it?"

"Caleb is in love with her."

"Maybe, she broke up with him and his pride couldn't handle it, you saw her face, and Mia lover's go for the face."

"She didn't break up with him, she talked about him, she'd said; it takes more than that to get between her and her man. You don't talk like that when you want to break up with someone."

"Okay maybe she didn't break up with him," Aaron said obviously not interested in discussion at this point in time, he took off his jacket and threw it on the spare bed. "I'm going to call our parents okay? I can imagine your parents freaking out when they hear the news."

Mia nodded absently pulling her own cell out of her pocket. "I'd better send James a text."

But Aaron had already disappeared into the lavatory, probably so he could talk to dad without protest from her. She typed in the very simple straight out to the point message: _"I think the sons killed a girl tonight."_

Mere seconds latter her phone was ringing, caller ID reading: James.

"Hello?"

"_Your kidding me right."_

"No, you should've seen her, I had just talked to her, I can't…-"

"_What? You saw her?"_

"Yes," she answered quietly.

"_Mia, hunny are you okay?"_

"Fine."

"_You're not alone are you?"_

"No, Aaron's here, he's calling dad."

"_Thank god," _he said, relief evident in his voice._ "Are you sure it was them?"_

"I don't know, Aaron is, but I didn't know what to make of Tyler."

"_Stay away from them okay__? Forget about the article, it doesn't matter anymore, I don't want you running around chasing after those guys." _

"I don't think Aaron will let me out of his sight."

"_It's a good thing you have him taking care of you."_

"Yeah, I'm going to go bed now okay? I'm feeling kind of tired," she wanted to end the conversation, she wanted to stop talking about, for her own peace of mind, for her own sanity.

"_Yeah, I __understand. Good night sis, I love you," _

"Love you too bro, give your wife and Misha a kiss from me okay?"

"_Okay," _he said before hanging up the phone.

She smiled slightly, getting up and grabbing a pj from her closet. She had just changed into it when her phone rang again. Caller ID: unknown. She hesitantly answered the phone.

"_Mia?"_ A tentative voice said quietly, a voice she recognized as Tyler's.

"How did you get my number?"

"_Does it really matter? Mia about…It wasn't us, no matter what Aaron said we would never-__, Caleb loved Sarah."_

"Than what were you doing out? We both know you weren't looking for your car keys."

"_I was looking for Sarah, Kate was worried." _

"And if I don't believe that, you'll tell me something else right?" Mia muttered before hanging up on him, she couldn't deal with this right now.

"Who were you talking to?" Aaron asked frowning walking back into the room.

"Van," she lied. "You know Jeremiah's friend. He'd heard and he was worried."

Aaron just nodded. "I told your parents I'd crash here with you, they were really worried about you. I told them you were going to call them in the morning."

"Thanks Aaron."

"Don't mention it," he said with a smile. "So this is my bed?" He asked plopping onto the bed that had been vacant since Elizabeth's departure.

She nodded and her phone started ringing again. She was relieved that it was Joan, and not Tyler.

"Joan?" She said picking up the phone.

"_Hunny, Tom told me are you okay? Do you want me to send him over to pick you up? I don't want you staying in that room on your own not with your connection to-,"_

"Aaron's here," Mia said interrupting her friends rant.

"_I've never been this glad to hear that boy's name."_

Mia smiled. "He'll be happy to hear that."

Aaron looked at her questioningly, raising an eyebrow at the remark.

"_Is it true what Jeremiah said, did you see her?"_ Joan asked in the softest tone Mia had ever heard her speak.

"Jeremiah?"

"_Yeah, he's here he was going apeshit because he couldn'__t find his cell and that he couldn't remember your dorm number. I've never seen him so worried, scratch that I've never seen him so sober."_

"Will you tell him I'm okay."

"_Don't need to, you're on speakerphone." _

"Oh."

"We were all worried about you, especially with-,"

"Me hanging out with them," Mia said finishing her sentence. "You think they did it?"

"_I don't know,"_ Joan answered affectively dodging the question. _"But regardless there is a killer running around Spencer and you have a habit of being alone."_

"I have a hunch, I won't be along anymore for a long time."

"_You're damn straight about that." _

She hoped Joan was right because she had this gut feeling, this was only the beginning of something huge.

**T.B.C **

**Hands down this was my favourite chapter to write so far. Not that I enjoy killing people off, I just feel like the story is FINALLY getting somewhere!**

**Stay tuned and tell me if you like it!**

**Love,**

**The Fishie**


	8. Black

"_Her angel must've fallen asleep on the job."  
_

_**Short Chap, but there's a lot going on in here. Have been busy with school, am a senior now have to help plan a truck load of events -- blahhhh am not the type of person for that kind of stuff.**_

_**So this chapter was pretty emotional for me, tried to keep the clichés to a minimum though…So enjoy though most of it revolves around Sarah's death.**_

**Chapter Eight: Black**

The next two days were a blur of regular phone calls from her family and the constant company of her friends; their presence barley registered, their conversation didn't get through to her. She was numbed by images and thoughts that consumed her mind and hardly got through to her at the same time.

Day one was marked by police officers, questioning her on the events of the previous nights, luckily though Aaron had been there to steadily guided her scattered mind through it all.

Day two it was announced that class would be suspended until after the Christmas-break, and that on day three there would be a memorial, so that the students could pay their last respects to Sarah.

On day three, the day of the memorial, she got a wakeup call, things started to make sense again. She had to get out of bed, she had to get dressed, which brought her to her dilemma of the day, a dilemma she resented but couldn't push out of her mind: what do you wear to the memorial of a seventeen-year-old? For half an hour she sat on her bed, dressed in her pyjamas, alone for the first time since that night. Aaron had left to get ready, assured by the fact that Kira would pop up mere moments after his departure.

The door flew open, Kira barged in: "Sorry, I'm late," she said looking the picture of respectable in her grey silk blouse and black knee-length skirt. "I ran into Caleb on the way over here, I wanted to give him my condolences. Oh Mia, if you saw him…-,"

"What should I wear?" Mia asked cutting her off. "I really don't know what to wear."

Kira frowned before opening her closet, giving it a slow once over before pulling something out. "This is appropriate for the occasion," she said carefully choosing her words.

It was a black, long sleeved knee reaching dress, the dress she had worn to her uncle's funeral, Kira really had a nose for these things. Kira waited patiently for her to get dressed, before casually saying: "I don't think they did it hun."

"Oh?" Mia asked smoothing out the dress before tying her hair up in a ponytail.

"They couldn't have, I mean, Caleb was at his mom's house, Pogue was with Kate and Reid and Tyler were at Nicky's," Kira said advocating the boys.

"Than why was Tyler doing outside with a flashlight like he was keeping guard."

"That's the funny thing; I was at Nicky's too, and around eleven o'clock they just rushed off, all of sudden, like something hit them. I didn't see them get a phone call but maybe I missed it or something."

"They just left?"

"Yeah, like they knew something was going on."

Mia's thoughts flashed back to everything; the books on the occult, the strange family history, the carvings on Sarah's stomach: were they really that into the occult? Sacrifices, premonitions,…?

"Mia?" Kira asked noticing her zoom off.

"Sorry, we should get going right?" Mia said grabbing her only real purse.

"Yeah," Kira said linking their arms together, they were quiet all the way to the assemble room which was already filling up with students; mostly seniors. As they walked into the room Mia's eyes scanned it: the complete school staff was present and sitting in the front row was a thin blond woman who was clutching the hands of two equally blond girls, Sarah's family no doubt. The three of them were dressed in black, looking sickly pale with swollen red eyes. Caleb was sitting next to them, his hands folded staring at his shiny black shoes and as if he felt her eyes on him he looked up, sad brown eyes met green ones briefly, she looked away after just a second or two. She was finding it harder to believe Aaron's theories now, Caleb's eyes were they eyes of someone who was defeated, down on his knees, she couldn't kick a man who was already down.

"You saw didn't you," Kira whispered as they sat down.

Mia nodded noticing the other Sons and Kate sitting in the second row, she watched Tyler and Reid whisper something to each other. Reid looked at her directly, over his shoulder, his blue eyes stared at her defiantly, daring her to say or even think, they had done it. Mia shook her head blocking him out, staring straight ahead. They had put up a small alter, with candles, a picture of Sarah smiling happily and a microphone. She fell into thought and before she knew it, those thoughts were interrupted by a voice, Provost Higgins voice.

"We're gathered here today, to pay our respects to Sarah Wenham, beloved daughter, sister, girlfriend, friend," he said solemnly. "The fact that we are here today to say goodbye to a seventeen-year-old girl is a tragedy. What happened to her, shocked us all, with reason, why did this happen here, to her of all people? Such a young cheerful girl. "

The woman, Sarah's mom let out a loud sob.

"I didn't know Sarah as much as I should know you all, that is why I'm going to ask her friends to come and speak about her so we can remember her for who she was, not what happened to her."

Mia saw Kate slowly get up, moving like a robot.

"Sarah was my roommate for only few months and I can't believe I already have to say goodbye to her," her voice broke. "Sure I thought that next Friday I would be saying see you latter Sarah have a nice Christmas," tears were rolling down her cheeks in rapid succession. "Not goodbye Sarah, see you on the other side someday. It's just wrong, nobody disserves this, but she sure as hell didn't. She never hurt anyone, she was sweet to everyone, she wasn't just my roommate she was my friend, my confidant, I never had a friend like her. I don't know what I'm going to do now that they took her away. I hope whoever did this, realises what he did, to her, her family and her friends…Mrs Wenham, Sarah was the best friend I ever." Kate said quietly before returning to her seat, immediately pulled into a hug by Pogue. Caleb got up, and Mia sat up a little straighter.

"You were so pretty Sarah, inside and outside, you were special…not like the other girls I know. You knew how to have fun, you knew exactly who you were, you were perfect…and I loved you for it." For a moment he was gone, lost in thoughts. "I keep watching the door, waiting for you to come in all bubbly smiles, but you don't come, you're somewhere far away. It felt like the world stopped that day when they took you away…but time just ticks on by and I miss you more and more with every second that passes." Mia watched him cast his tear filled brown eyes down and her heart broke for him.

"Caleb didn't do it, did he?" She whispered softly to Kira.

She looked at her, with a slight smile.

"Than what happened to her Kira?"

"Her angel must've fallen asleep on the job."

On the next day, the forth day after Sarah's death, Mia could take her mind off of it; she was packing her bags, tomorrow she would leave with Joan and Mark, she had decided to nix spending the Christmas holiday with her family and a few of their closest friends in Aspen in favour of some quiet time with friends who wouldn't smother her with concern. She figured she could spend quality time with her family when they returned to celebrate New Year in Ipswich.

Aaron had left today, with hesitation of course, but she had promised to not leave her room without an escort. But he was gone for two hours and she was already breaking her promise to retrieve a book Kira had borrowed from her.

The weather was off again, rain pounding heavily against the windows, she could see the tops of the trees swaying violently, through the windows, like they were the winds playthings. And than, there was a loud crackle, thunder seemed to follow her around like a puppy.

Why did she have to go out against Aaron's advice?

Stupid girl with your stupid stubbornness.

She pulled her sweater closer to her body, it was like someone turned off the heating; Goosebumps were forming on her neck, shivers were running up and down her spine. Something felt of, her instincts told her, no shouted at her to keep walking. To not look back.

It's all imagination, just imagination nothing more.

And then it seemed the walls around her came closing in on her, the floor beneath her feet was crumbling away. Something…fingers were slowly sliding up her back; immobilizing her, making it harder and harder for her to breath. And then she was falling. She wanted to scream but she couldn't breath and the pain was intense, her cut burned like a fire spreading through her body, like she was being burned alive. She could feel someone's breath against the back of her neck and soft fast mumbling she couldn't make out.

But than there was another voice calling her name; the name ebbed away, she could move again, breath again and she was left sitting on the floor on her knees panting heavily, staring into the jet black eyes of Tyler Simms.

He was trying to lift her off the floor, but there was no way in hell she was going to let this, this-, thing touch her.

"Don't touch me!" She said in-between gasps. "What did you do?"

He frowned his eyes taking on their normal baby blue colour: "Mia I didn't do this to you," he said quietly offering her his hand but she slapped it away.

"Stay away from me," she spat.

"Mia, please-,"

"If you come near me again, I'll scream bloody murder."

"Mia, I can't leave you like this, you're in danger."

"No, no, no," she said looking around frantically, she tried to get up, but she felt so tired, she just didn't have the strength to simply get up and walk away. "You, whatever you are you're what's dangerous! Get away from me!"

He didn't budge, he just looked at her like a beaten dog, like he had just lost a friend.

An act, all an act, he's dangerous, he's not human. Aaron was right, he had been right from the start. There was something wrong with them, all four of them.

"Mia-,"

"I said get away!" She screamed, she was like a frightened animal driven into a corner. Frightened tears were rolling down her cheeks and she was shaking violently.

Tyler turned around and walked away, he didn't want to scar her even more than he had already done: she couldn't handle more at this point. So he left her there, on the floor, a crying shaking mess. But what choice did he have?

**T.B.C**

**Yeah not really happy about this chapter, I don't like overly emotional issues anymore so yeah. **

"**Her angel must've fallen asleep on the job." Is derived from a quote from an eight year old girl about the death of someone we both knew. I really liked the simplicity of it…So yeah just see this chapter as a tribute to those who've died too young. **

**Greetings & see you soon**

**The Fishie. **


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